Distance from Venneford to Centennial

In the book, a map shows Venneford as being closer to the Wyoming line than to Centennial. Since the distance from Greeley to Cheyenne is 70 miles, the distance from Venneford to Centennial would have been around 50 miles. For the sake of discussion, let's assume it would be 40 miles. A horse walks on average 4 mph, a trot at about 10 mph. So at a constant trot, it would take at least 4 hours just to get to town and probably more. An 8 hour trip plus whatever had to be done in town. Seems needlessly far away to me.