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Title: The Garotters

Author: William D. Howells

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CONTENTS

Prologue

I. Old Friends
II. Mercedes Castaneda
III. A Flight Into The Desert
IV. Forlorn River
V. A Desert Rose
VI. The Yaqui
VII. White Horses
VIII. The Running of Blanco Sol
IX. An Interrupted Siesta
X. Rojas
XI. Across Cactus and Lava
XII. The Crater of Hell
XIII. Changes at Forlorn River
XIV. A Lost Son
XV. Bound In The Desert
XVI. Mountain Sheep
XVII. The Whistle of a Horse
XVIII. Reality Against Dreams
XIX. The Secret of Forlorn River
XX. Desert Gold


D E S E R T G O L D

PROLOGUE

Chapter I

A face haunted Cameron--a woman's face.

It was there in the white heart of the dying campfire;
it hung in the shadows that hovered over the flickering light;
it drifted in the darkness beyond.

This hour,
when the day had closed and the lonely desert night set in
with its dead silence,
was one in which Cameron's mind was thronged
with memories of a time long past--of a home back in Peoria,
of a woman he had wronged and lost,
and loved too late.

He was a prospector
for gold,
a hunter of solitude,
a lover of the drear,
rock-ribbed infinitude,
because he wanted
to be alone
to remember.

A sound disturbed Cameron's reflections.

He bent his head listening.

A soft wind fanned the paling embers,
blew sparks and white ashes and thin smoke away into the enshrouding circle of blackness.

His burro did not appear
to be moving about.

The quiet split
to the cry of a coyote.

It rose strange,
wild,
mournful--not the howl of a prowling upland beast baying the campfire or barking at a lonely prospector,
but the wail of a wolf,
full-voiced,
crying out the meaning of the desert and the night.

Hunger throbbed in it--hunger
for a mate,
for offspring,
for life.

When it ceased,
the terrible desert silence smote Cameron,
and the cry echoed in his soul.

He and that wandering wolf were brothers.

Then a sharp clink of metal on stone and soft pads of hoofs in sand prompted Cameron
to reach
for his gun,
and
to move out of the light of waning campfire.

He was somewhere along the wild border line between Sonora and Arizona;
and the prospector who dared the heat and barrenness of that region risked other dangers sometimes as menacing.

Figures darker than the gloom approached and took shape,
and in the light turned out
to be those of a white man and a heavily packed burro.

"Hello there,"
the man called,
as he came
to a halt and gazed about him.

"I saw your fire.

May I make camp here?"
Cameron came forth out of the shadow and greeted his visitor,
whom he took
for a prospector like himself.

Cameron resented the breaking of his lonely campfire vigil,
but he respected the law of the desert.

The stranger thanked him,
and then slipped the pack from his burro.

Then he rolled out his pack and began preparations
for a meal.

His movements were slow and methodical.

Cameron watched him,
still
with resentment,
yet
with a curious and growing interest.

The campfire burst into a bright blaze,
and by its light Cameron saw a man whose gray hair somehow did not seem
to make him old,
and whose stooped shoulders did not detract from an impression of rugged strength.

"Find any mineral?"
asked Cameron,
presently.

His visitor looked up quickly,
as if startled by the sound of a human voice.

He replied,
and then the two men talked a little.

But the stranger evidently preferred silence.

Cameron understood that.

He laughed grimly and bent a keener gaze upon the furrowed,
shadowy face.

Another of those strange desert prospectors in whom there was some relentless driving power besides the lust
for gold! Cameron felt that between this man and himself there was a subtle affinity,
vague and undefined,
perhaps born of the divination that here was a desert wanderer like himself,
perhaps born of a deeper,
an unintelligible relation having its roots back in the past.

A long-forgotten sensation stirred in Cameron's breast,
one so long forgotten that he could recognize it.

But it was akin
to pain.

Chapter II When he awakened he found,
to his surprise,
that his companion had departed.

A trail in the sand led off
to the north.

There was no water in that direction.

Cameron shrugged his shoulders;
it was not his affair;
he had his own problems.

And straightway he forgot his strange visitor.

Cameron began his day,
grateful
for the solitude that was now unbroken,
for the canyon-furrowed and cactus-spired scene that now showed no sign of life.

He traveled southwest,
never straying far from the dry stream bed;
and in a desultory way,
without eagerness,
he hunted
for signs of gold.

The work was toilsome,
yet the periods of rest in which he indulged were not taken because of fatigue.

He rested
to look,
to listen,
to feel.

What the vast silent world meant
to him had always been a mystical thing,
which he felt in all its incalculable power,
but never understood.

That day,
while it was yet light,
and he was digging in a moist white-bordered wash
for water,
he was brought sharply up by hearing the crack of hard hoofs on stone.

There down the canyon came a man and a burro.

Cameron recognized them.

"Hello,
friend,"
called the man,
halting.

"Our trails crossed again.

That's good."

"Hello,"
replied Cameron,
slowly.

"Any mineral sign to-day?"
"No."

They made camp together,
ate their frugal meal,
smoked a pipe,
and rolled in their blankets without exchanging many words.

In the morning the same reticence,
the same aloofness characterized the manner of both.

But Cameron's companion,
when he had packed his burro and was ready
to start,
faced about and said:

"We might stay together,
if it's all right
with you."

"I never take a partner,"
replied Cameron.

"You're alone;
I'm alone,"
said the other,
mildly.

"It's a big place.

If we find gold there'll be enough
for two."

"I don't go down into the desert
for gold alone,"
rejoined Cameron,
with a chill note in his swift reply.

His companion's deep-set,
luminous eyes emitted a singular flash.

It moved Cameron
to say that in the years of his wandering he had meant no man who could endure equally
with him the blasting heat,
the blinding dust storms,
the wilderness of sand and rock and lava and cactus,
the terrible silence and desolation of the desert.

Cameron waved a hand toward the wide,
shimmering,
shadowy descent of plain and range.

"I may strike through the Sonora Desert.

I may head
for Pinacate or north
for the Colorado Basin.

You are an old man."

"I don't know the country,
but
to me one place is the same as another,"
replied his companion.

for moments he seemed
to forget himself,
and swept his far-reaching gaze out over the colored gulf of stone and sand.

Then
with gentle slaps he drove his burro in behind Cameron.

"Yes,
I'm old.

I'm lonely,
too.

It's come
to me just lately.

but,
friend,
I can still travel,
and
for a few days my company won't hurt you."

"Have it your way,"
said Cameron.

They began a slow march down into the desert.

At sunset they camped under the lee of a low mesa.

Cameron was glad his comrade had the Indian habit of silence.

Another day's travel found the prospectors deep in the wilderness.

Then there came a breaking of reserve,
noticeable in the elder man,
almost imperceptibly gradual in Cameron.

Beside the meager mesquite campfire this gray-faced,
thoughtful old prospector would remove his black pipe from his mouth
to talk a little;
and Cameron would listen,
and sometimes unlock his lips
to speak a word.

And so,
as Cameron began
to respond
to the influence of a desert less lonely than habitual,
he began
to take keener note of his comrade,
and found him different from any other he had ever encountered in the wilderness.

This man never grumbled at the heat,
the glare,
the driving sand,
the sour water,
the scant fare.

During the daylight hours he was seldom idle.

At night he sat dreaming before the fire or paced
to and fro in the gloom.

He slept but little,
and that long after Cameron had had his own rest.

He was tireless,
patient,
brooding.

Cameron's awakened interest brought home
to him the realization that
for years he had shunned companionship.

In those years only three men had wandered into the desert
with him,
and these had left their bones
to bleach in the shifting sands.

Cameron had not cared
to know their secrets.

But the more he studied this latest comrade the more he began
to suspect that he might have missed something in the others.

In his own driving passion
to take his secret into the limitless abode of silence and desolation,
where he could be alone
with it,
he had forgotten that life dealt shocks
to other men.

Somehow this silent comrade reminded him.

One afternoon late,
after than had toiled up a white,
winding wash of sand and gravel,
they came upon a dry waterhole.

Cameron dug deep into the sand,
but without avail.

He was turning
to retrace weary steps back
to the last water when his comrade asked him
to wait.

Cameron watched him search in his pack and bring forth what appeared
to be a small,
forked branch of a peach tree.

He grasped the prongs of the fork and held them before him
with the end standing straight out,
and then he began
to walk along the stream bed.

Cameron,
at first amused,
then amazed,
then pitying,
and at last curious,
kept pace
with the prospector.

He saw a strong tension of his comrade's wrists,
as if he was holding hard against a considerable force.

The end of the peach branch began
to quiver and turn.

Cameron reached out a hand
to touch it,
and was astounded at feeling a powerful vibrant force pulling the branch downward.

He felt it as a magnetic shock.

The branch kept turning,
and at length pointed
to the ground.

"Dig here,"
said the prospector.

"What!"
ejaculated Cameron.

Had the man lost his mind?

Then Cameron stood by while his comrade dug in the sand.

Three feet he dug--four--five,
and the sand grew dark,
then moist.

At six feet water began
to seep through.

"Get the little basket in my pack,"
he said.

Cameron complied,
and saw his comrade drop the basket into the deep hole,
where it kept the sides from caving in and allowed the water
to seep through.

While Cameron watched,
the basket filled.

Of all the strange incidents of his desert career this was the strangest.

Curiously he picked up the peach branch and held it as he had seen it held.

The thing,
however,
was dead in his hands.

"I see you haven't got it,"
remarked his comrade.

"Few men have."

"Got what?"
demanded Cameron.

"A power
to find water that way.

Back in Illinois an old German used
to do that
to locate wells.

He showed me I had the same power.

I can't explain.

But you needn't look so dumfounded.

There's nothing supernatural about it."

"You mean it's a simple fact--that some men have a magnetism,
a force or power
to find water as you did?"
"Yes.

It's not unusual on the farms back in Illinois,
Ohio,
Pennsylvania.

The old German I spoke of made money traveling round
with his peach fork."

"What a gift
for a man in the desert!"
Cameron's comrade smiled--the second time in all those days.

They entered a region where mineral abounded,
and their march became slower.

Generally they took the course of a wash,
one on each side,
and let the burros travel leisurely along nipping at the bleached blades of scant grass,
or at sage or cactus,
while they searched in the canyons and under the ledges
for signs of gold.

When they found any rock that hinted of gold they picked off a piece and gave it a chemical test.

The search was fascinating.

They interspersed the work
with long,
restful moments when they looked afar down the vast reaches and smoky shingles
to the line of dim mountains.

Some impelling desire,
not all the lure of gold,
took them
to the top of mesas and escarpments;
and here,
when they had dug and picked,
they rested and gazed out at the wide prospect.

Then,
as the sun lost its heat and sank lowering
to dent its red disk behind far-distant spurs,
they halted in a shady canyon or likely spot in a dry wash and tried
for water.

When they found it they unpacked,
gave drink
to the tired burros,
and turned them loose.

Dead mesquite served
for the campfire.

While the strange twilight deepened into weird night they sat propped against stones,
with eyes on the dying embers of the fire,
and soon they lay on the sand
with the light of white stars on their dark faces.

Each succeeding day and night Cameron felt himself more and more drawn
to this strange man.

He found that after hours of burning toil he had insensibly grown nearer
to his comrade.

He reflected that after a few weeks in the desert he had always become a different man.

In civilization,
in the rough mining camps,
he had been a prey
to unrest and gloom.

but once down on the great billowing sweep of this lonely world,
he could look into his unquiet soul without bitterness.

Did not the desert magnify men?

Cameron believed that wild men in wild places,
fighting cold,
heat,
starvation,
thirst,
barrenness,
facing the elements in all their ferocity,
usually retrograded,
descended
to the savage,
lost all heart and soul and became mere brutes.

Likewise he believed that men wandering or lost in the wilderness often reversed that brutal order of life and became noble,
wonderful,
super-human.

So now he did not marvel at a slow stir stealing warmer along his veins,
and at the premonition that perhaps he and this man,
alone on the desert,
driven there by life's mysterious and remorseless motive,
were
to see each other through God's eyes.

His companion was one who thought of himself last.

It humiliated Cameron that in spite of growing keenness he could not hinder him from doing more than an equal share of the day's work.

The man was mild,
gentle,
quiet,
mostly silent,
yet under all his softness he seemed
to be mad of the fiber of steel.

Cameron could not thwart him.

Moreover,
he appeared
to want
to find gold
for Cameron,
not
for himself.

Cameron's hands always trembled at the turning of rock that promised gold;
he had enough of the prospector's passion
for fortune
to thrill at the chance of a strike.

But the other never showed the least trace of excitement.

One night they were encamped at the head of a canyon.

They day had been exceedingly hot,
and long after sundown the radiation of heat from the rocks persisted.

A desert bird whistled a wild,
melancholy note from a dark cliff,
and a distant coyote wailed mournfully.

The stars shone white until the huge moon rose
to burn out all their whiteness.

And on this night Cameron watched his comrade,
and yielded
to interest he had not heretofore voiced.

"Pardner,
what drives you into the desert?"
"Do I seem
to be a driven man?"
"No.

but I feel it.

Do you come
to forget?"
"Yes."

"Ah!"
softly exclaimed Cameron.

Always he seemed
to have known that.

He said no more.

He watched the old man rise and begin his nightly pace
to and fro,
up and down.

With slow,
soft tread,
forward and back,
tirelessly and ceaselessly,
he paced that beat.

He did not look up at the stars or follow the radiant track of the moon along the canyon ramparts.

He hung his head.

He was lost in another world.

It was a world which the lonely desert made real.

He looked a dark,
sad,
plodding figure,
and somehow impressed Cameron
with the helplessness of men.

Cameron grew acutely conscious of the pang in his own breast,
of the fire in his heart,
the strife and torment of his passion-driven soul.

He had come into the desert
to remember a woman.

She appeared
to him then as she had looked when first she entered his life--a golden-haired girl,
blue-eyed,
white-skinned,
red-lipped,
tall and slender and beautiful.

He had never forgotten,
and an old,
sickening remorse knocked at his heart.

He rose and climbed out of the canyon and
to the top of a mesa,
where he paced
to and fro and looked down into the weird and mystic shadows,
like the darkness of his passion,
and farther on down the moon track and the glittering stretches that vanished in the cold,
blue horizon.

The moon soared radiant and calm,
the white stars shone serene.

The vault of heaven seemed illimitable and divine.

The desert surrounded him,
silver-streaked and black-mantled,
a chaos of rock and sand,
silent,
austere,
ancient,
always waiting.

It spoke
to Cameron.

It was a naked corpse,
but it had a soul.

In that wild solitude the white stars looked down upon him pitilessly and pityingly.

They had shone upon a desert that might once have been alive and was now dead,
and might again throb
with life,
only
to die.

It was a terrible ordeal
for him
to stand along and realize that he was only a man facing eternity.

But that was what gave him strength
to endure.

Somehow he was a part of it all,
some atom in that vastness,
somehow necessary
to an inscrutable purpose,
something indestructible in that desolate world of ruin and death and decay,
something perishable and changeable and growing under all the fixity of heaven.

In that endless,
silent hall of desert there was a spirit;
and Cameron felt hovering near him what he imagined
to be phantoms of peace.

He returned
to camp and sought his comrade.

"I reckon we're two of a kind,"
he said.

"It was a woman who drove me into the desert.

But I come
to remember.

The desert's the only place I can
to that."

"Was she your wife?"
asked the elder man.

"No."

A long silence ensued.

A cool wind blew up the canyon,
sifting the sand through the dry sage,
driving away the last of the lingering heat.

The campfire wore down
to a ruddy ashen heap.

"I had a daughter,"
said Cameron's comrade.

"She lost her mother at birth.

And I--I didn't know how
to bring up a girl.

She was pretty and gay.

It was the--the old story."

His words were peculiarly significant
to Cameron.

They distressed him.

He had been wrapped up in his remorse.

If ever in the past he had thought of any one connected
with the girl he had wronged he had long forgotten.

But the consequences of such wrong were far-reaching.

They struck at the roots of a home.

Here in the desert he was confronted by the spectacle of a splendid man,
a father,
wasting his life because he could not forget--because there was nothing left
to live for.

Cameron understood better now why his comrade was drawn by the desert.

"Well,
tell me more?"
asked Cameron,
earnestly.

"It was the old,
old story.

My girl was pretty and free.

The young bucks ran after her.

I guess she did not run away from them.

And I was away a good deal--working in another town.

She was in love
with a wild fellow.

I knew nothing of it till too late.

He was engaged
to marry her.

But he didn't come back.

And when the disgrace became plain
to all,
my girl left home.

She went West.

After a while I heard from her.

She was well--working--living
for her baby.

A long time passed.

I had no ties.

I drifted West.

Her lover had also gone West.

In those days everybody went West.

I trailed him,
intending
to kill him.

But I lost his trail.

Neither could I find any trace of her.

She had moved on,
driven,
no doubt,
by the hound of her past.

Since then I have taken
to the wilds,
hunting gold on the desert."

"Yes,
it's the old,
old story,
only sadder,
I think,"
said Cameron;
and his voice was strained and unnatural.

"Pardner,
what Illinois town was it you hailed from?"
"Peoria."

"And your--your name?"
went on Cameron huskily.

"Warren--Jonas Warren."

That name might as well have been a bullet.

Cameron stood erect,
motionless,
as men sometimes stand momentarily when shot straight through the heart.

In an instant,
when thoughts resurged like blinding flashes of lightning through his mind,
he was a swaying,
quivering,
terror-stricken man.

He mumbled something hoarsely and backed into the shadow.

But he need not have feared discovery,
however surely his agitation might have betrayed him.

Warren sat brooding over the campfire,
oblivious of his comrade,
absorbed in the past.

Cameron swiftly walked away in the gloom,
with the blood thrumming thick in his ears,
whispering over and over:

"Merciful God! Nell was his daughter!"
Chapter III As thought and feeling multiplied,
Cameron was overwhelmed.

Beyond belief,
indeed,
was it that out of the millions of men in the world two who had never seen each other cold have been driven into the desert by memory of the same woman.

It brought the past so close.

It showed Cameron how inevitably all his spiritual life was governed by what had happened long ago.

That which made life significant
to him was a wandering in silent places where no eye could see him
with his secret.

Some fateful chance had thrown him
with the father of the girl he had wrecked.

It was incomprehensible;
it was terrible.

It was the one thing of all possible happenings in the world of chance that both father and lover would have found unendurable.

Cameron's pain reached
to despair when he felt this relation between Warren and himself.

Something within him cried out
to him
to reveal his identity.

Warren would kill him;
but it was not fear of death that put Cameron on the rack.

He had faced death too often
to be afraid.

It was the thought of adding torture
to this long-suffering man.

All at once Cameron swore that he would not augment Warren's trouble,
or let him stain his hands
with blood.

He would tell the truth of Nell's sad story and his own,
and make what amends he could.

Then Cameron's thought shifted from father
to daughter.

She was somewhere beyond the dim horizon line.

In those past lonely hours by the campfire his fancy had tortured him
with pictures of Nell.

But his remorseful and cruel fancy had lied
to him.

Nell had struggled upward out of menacing depths.

She had reconstructed a broken life.

And now she was fighting
for the name and happiness of her child.

Little Nell! Cameron experienced a shuddering ripple in all his being--the physical rack of an emotion born of a new and strange consciousness.

As Cameron gazed out over the blood-red,
darkening desert suddenly the strife in his soul ceased.

The moment was one of incalculable change,
in which his eyes seemed
to pierce the vastness of cloud and range,
and mystery of gloom and shadow--to see
with strong vision the illimitable space before him.

He felt the grandeur of the desert,
its simplicity,
its truth.

He had learned at last the lesson it taught.

No longer strange was his meeting and wandering
with Warren.

Each had marched in the steps of destiny;
and as the lines of their fates had been inextricably tangled in the years that were gone,
so now their steps had crossed and turned them toward one common goal.

For years they had been two men marching alone,
answering
to an inward driving search,
and the desert had brought them together.

for years they had wandered alone in silence and solitude,
where the sun burned white all day and the stars burned white all night,
blindly following the whisper of a spirit.

But now Cameron knew that he was no longer blind,
and in this flash of revelation he felt that it had been given him
to help Warren
with his burden.

He returned
to camp trying
to evolve a plan.

As always at that long hour when the afterglow of sunset lingered in the west,
Warren plodded
to and fro in the gloom.

All night Cameron lay awake thinking.

In the morning,
when Warren brought the burros
to camp and began preparations
for the usual packing,
Cameron broke silence.

"Pardner,
your story last night made me think.

I want
to tell you something about myself.

It's hard enough
to be driven by sorrow
for one you've loved,
as you've been driven;
but
to suffer sleepless and eternal remorse
for the ruin of one you've loved as I have suffered--that is hell.

.

.

.Listen.

In my younger days--it seems long now,
yet isn't not so many years--I was wild.

I wronged the sweetest and loveliest girl I ever knew.

I went away not dreaming that any disgrace might come
to her.

Along about that time I fell into terrible moods--I changed--I learned I really loved her.

Then came a letter I should have gotten months before.

It told of her trouble--importuned me
to hurry
to save her.

Half frantic
with shame and fear,
I got a marriage certificate and rushed back
to her town.

She was gone--had been gone
for weeks,
and her disgrace was known.

Friends warned me
to keep out of reach of her father.

I trailed her-- found her.

I married her.

But too late!...She would not live
with me.

She left me.--I followed her west,
but never found her."

Warren leaned forward a little and looked into Cameron's eyes,
as if searching there
for the repentance that might make him less deserving of a man's scorn.

Cameron met the gaze unflinchingly,
and again began
to speak:

"You know,
of course,
how men out here somehow lose old names,
old identities.

It won't surprise you much
to learn my name really isn't Cameron,
as I once told you."

Warren stiffened upright.

It seemed that there might have been a blank,
a suspension,
between his grave interest and some strange mood
to come.

Cameron felt his heart bulge and contract in his breast;
all his body grew cold;
and it took tremendous effort
for him
to make his lips form words.

"Warren,
I'm the man you're hunting.

I'm Burton.

I was Nell's lover!"
The old man rose and towered over Cameron,
and then plunged down upon him,
and clutched at his throat
with terrible stifling hands.

The harsh contact,
the pain awakened Cameron
to his peril before it was too late.

Desperate fighting saved him from being hurled
to the ground and stamped and crushed.

Warren seemed a maddened giant.

There was a reeling,
swaying,
wrestling struggle before the elder man began
to weaken.

The Cameron,
buffeted,
bloody,
half-stunned,
panted
for speech.

"Warren--hold on! Give me--a minute.

I married Nell.

Didn't you know that?...I saved the child! Cameron felt the shock that vibrated through Warren.

He repeated the words again and again.

As if compelled by some resistless power,
Warren released Cameron,
and,
staggering back,
stood
with uplifted,
shaking hands.

In his face was a horrible darkness.

"Warren! Wait--listen!"
panted Cameron.

"I've got that marriage certificate--I've had it by me all these years.

I kept it--to prove
to myself I did right."

The old man uttered a broken cry.

Cameron stole off among the rocks.

How long he absented himself or what he did he had no idea.

When he returned Warren was sitting before the campfire,
and once more he appeared composed.

He spoke,
and his voice had a deeper note;
but otherwise he seemed as usual.

They packed the burros and faced the north together.

Cameron experienced a singular exaltation.

He had lightened his comrade's burden.

Wonderfully it came
to him that he had also lightened his own.

From that hour it was not torment
to think of Nell.

Walking
with his comrade through the silent places,
lying beside him under the serene luminous light of the stars,
Cameron began
to feel the haunting presence of invisible things that were real
to him--phantoms whispering peace.

In the moan of the cool wind,
in the silken seep of sifting sand,
in the distant rumble of a slipping ledge,
in the faint rush of a shooting star he heard these phantoms of peace coming
with whispers of the long pain of men at the last made endurable.

Even in the white noonday,
under the burning sun,
these phantoms came
to be real
to him.

In the dead silence of the midnight hours he heard them breathing nearer on the desert wind--nature's voices of motherhood,
whispers of God,
peace in the solitude.

Chapter IV There came a morning when the sun shone angry and red through a dull,
smoky haze.

"We're in
for sandstorms,"
said Cameron.

They had scarcely covered a mile when a desert-wide,
moaning,
yellow wall of flying sand swooped down upon them.

Seeking shelter in the lee of a rock,
they waited,
hoping the storm was only a squall,
such as frequently whipped across the open places.

The moan increased
to a roar,
and the dull red slowly dimmed,
to disappear in the yellow pall,
and the air grew thick and dark.

Warren slipped the packs from the burros.

Cameron feared the sandstorms had arrived some weeks ahead of their usual season.

The men covered their heads and patiently waited.

The long hours dragged,
and the storm increased in fury.

Cameron and Warren wet scarfs
with water from their canteens,
and bound them round their faces,
and then covered their heads.

The steady,
hollow bellow of flying sand went on.

It flew so thickly that enough sifted down under the shelving rock
to weight the blankets and almost bury the men.

They were frequently compelled
to shake off the sand
to keep from being borne
to the ground.

And it was necessary
to keep digging out the packs.

The floor of their shelter gradually rose higher and higher.

they tried
to eat,
and seemed
to be grinding only sand between their teeth.

They lost the count of time.

They dared not sleep,
for that would have meant being buried alive.

The could only crouch close
to the leaning rock,
shake off the sand,
blindly dig out their packs,
and every moment gasp and cough and choke
to fight suffocation.

The storm finally blew itself out.

It let the prospectors heavy and stupid
for want of sleep.

Their burros had wandered away,
or had been buried in the sand.

Far as eye could reach the desert had marvelously changed;
it was now a rippling sea of sand dunes.

Away
to the north rose the peak that was their only guiding mark.

They headed toward it,
carrying a shovel and part of their packs.

At noon the peak vanished in the shimmering glare of the desert.

The prospectors pushed on,
guided by the sun.

In every wash they tried
for water.

With the forked peach branch in his hands Warren always succeeded in locating water.

They dug,
but it lay too deep.

At length,
spent and sore,
they fell and slept through that night and part of the next day.

Then they succeeded in getting water,
and quenched their thirst,
and filled the canteens,
and cooked a meal.

The burning day found them in an interminably wide plain,
where there was no shelter from the fierce sun.

The men were exceedingly careful
with their water,
though there was absolute necessity of drinking a little every hour.

Late in the afternoon they came
to a canyon that they believed was the lower end of the one in which they had last found water.

For hours they traveled toward its head,
and,
long after night had set,
found what they sought.

Yielding
to exhaustion,
they slept,
and next day were loath
to leave the waterhole.

Cool night spurred them on
with canteens full and renewed strength.

Morning told Cameron that they had turned back miles into the desert,
and it was desert new
to him.

The red sun,
the increasing heat,
and especially the variety and large size of the cactus plants warned Cameron that he had descended
to a lower level.

Mountain peaks loomed on all sides,
some hear,
others distant;
and one,
a blue spur,
splitting the glaring sky far
to the north,
Cameron thought he recognized as a landmark.

The ascent toward it was heartbreaking,
not in steepness,
but in its league-and league-long monotonous rise.

Cameron knew there was only one hope--to make the water hold out and never stop
to rest.

Warren began
to weaken.

Often he had
to halt.

The burning white day passed,
and likewise the night,
with its white stars shining so pitilessly cold and bright.

Cameron measured the water in his canteen by its weight.

Evaporation by heat consumed as much as he drank.

During one of the rests,
when he had wetted his parched mouth and throat,
he found opportunity
to pour a little water from his canteen into Warren's.

At first Cameron had curbed his restless activity
to accommodate the pace of his elder comrade.

but now he felt that he was losing something of his instinctive and passionate zeal
to get out of the desert.

The thought of water came
to occupy his mind.

He began
to imagine that his last little store of water did not appreciably diminish.

He knew he was not quite right in his mind regarding water;
nevertheless,
he felt this
to be more of fact than fancy,
and he began
to ponder.

When next they rested he pretended
to be in a kind of stupor;
but he covertly watched Warren.

The man appeared far gone,
yet he had cunning.

He cautiously took up Cameron's canteen and poured water into it from his own.

This troubled Cameron.

The old irritation at not being able
to thwart Warren returned
to him.

Cameron reflected,
and concluded that he had been unwise not
to expect this very thing.

Then,
as his comrade dropped into weary rest,
he lifted both canteens.

If there were any water in Warren's,
it was only very little.

Both men had been enduring the terrible desert thirst,
concealing it,
each giving his water
to the other,
and the sacrifice had been useless.

Instead of ministering
to the parched throats of one or both,
the water had evaporated.

When Cameron made sure of this,
he took one more drink,
the last,
and poured the little water left into Warren's canteen.

He threw his own away.

Soon afterward Warren discovered the loss.

"Where's your canteen?"
he asked.

"The heat was getting my water,
so I drank what was left."

"My son!"
said Warren.

The day opened
for them in a red and green hell of rock and cactus.

Like a flame the sun scorched and peeled their faces.

Warren went blind from the glare,
and Cameron had
to lead him.

At last Warren plunged down,
exhausted,
in the shade of a ledge.

Cameron rested and waited,
hopeless,
with hot,
weary eyes gazing down from the height where he sat.

the ledge was the top step of a ragged gigantic stairway.

Below stretched a sad,
austere,
and lonely valley.

A dim,
wide streak,
lighter than the bordering gray,
wound down the valley floor.

Once a river had flowed there,
leaving only a forlorn trace down the winding floor of this forlorn valley.

Movement on the part of Warren attracted Cameron's attention.

Evidently the old prospector had recovered his sight and some of his strength.

for he had arisen,
and now began
to walk along the arroyo bed
with his forked peach branch held before him.

He had clung
to the precious bit of wood.

Cameron considered the prospect
for water hopeless,
because he saw that the arroyo had once been a canyon,
and had been filled
with sands by desert winds.

Warren,
however,
stopped in a deep pit,
and,
cutting his canteen in half,
began
to use one side of it as a scoop.

He scooped out a wide hollow,
so wide that Cameron was certain he had gone crazy.

Cameron gently urged him
to stop,
and then forcibly tried
to make him.

But these efforts were futile.

Warren worked
with slow,
ceaseless,
methodical movement.

He toiled
for what seemed hours.

Cameron,
seeing the darkening,
dampening sand,
realized a wonderful possibility of water,
and he plunged into the pit
with the other half of the canteen.

Then both men toiled,
round and round the wide hole,
down deeper and deeper.

The sand grew moist,
then wet.

At the bottom of the deep pit the sand coarsened,
gave place
to gravel.

Finally water welled in,
a stronger volume than Cameron ever remembered finding on the desert.

It would soon fill the hole and run over.

He marveled at the circumstance.

The time was near the end of the dry season.

Perhaps an underground stream flowed from the range behind down
to the valley floor,
and at this point came near
to the surface.

Cameron had heard of such desert miracles.

The finding of water revived Cameron's flagging hopes.

But they were short-lived.

Warren had spend himself utterly.

"I'm done.

Don't linger,"
he whispered.

"My son,
go--go!"
Then he fell.

Cameron dragged him out of the sand pit
to a sheltered place under the ledge.

While sitting beside the failing man Cameron discovered painted images on the wall.

Often in the desert he had found these evidences of a prehistoric people.

Then,
from long habit,
he picked up a piece of rock and examined it.

Its weight made him closely scrutinize it.

The color was a peculiar black.

He scraped through the black rust
to find a piece of gold.

Around him lay scattered heaps of black pebbles and bits of black,
weathered rock and pieces of broken ledge,
and they showed gold.

"Warren! Look! See it! Feel it! Gold!"
But Warren had never cared,
and now he was too blind
to see.

"Go--go!"
he whispered.

Cameron gazed down the gray reaches of the forlorn valley,
and something within him that was neither intelligence nor emotion--something inscrutably strange--impelled him
to promise.

The Cameron built up stone monuments
to mark his gold strike.

That done,
he tarried beside the unconscious Warren.

Moments passed--grew into hours.

Cameron still had strength left
to make an effort
to get out of the desert.

But that same inscrutable something which had ordered his strange involuntary promise
to Warren held him beside his fallen comrade.

He watched the white sun turn
to gold,
and then
to red and sink behind mountains in the west.

Twilight stole into the arroyo.

It lingered,
slowly turning
to gloom.

The vault of blue black lightened
to the blinking of stars.

Then fell the serene,
silent,
luminous desert night.

Cameron kept his vigil.

As the long hours wore on he felt creep over him the comforting sense that he need not forever fight sleep.

A wan glow flared behind the dark,
uneven horizon,
and a melancholy misshapen moon rose
to make the white night one of shadows.

Absolute silence claimed the desert.

It was mute.

Then that inscrutable something breathed
to him,
telling him when he was along.

He need not have looked at the dark,
still face beside him.

Another face haunted Cameron's--a woman's face.

It was there in the white moonlit shadows;
it drifted in the darkness beyond;
it softened,
changed
to that of a young girl,
sweet,
with the same dark,
haunting eyes of her mother.

Cameron prayed
to that nameless thing within him,
the spirit of something deep and mystical as life.

He prayed
to that nameless thing outside,
of which the rocks and the sand,
the spiked cactus and the ragged lava,
the endless waste,
with its vast star-fired mantle,
were but atoms.

He prayed
for mercy
to a woman--for happiness
to her child.

Both mother and daughter were close
to him then.

Time and distance were annihilated.

He had faith--he saw into the future.

The fateful threads of the past,
so inextricably woven
with his error,
wound out their tragic length here in this forlorn desert.

CAMERON then took a little tin box from his pocket,
and,
opening it,
removed a folded certificate.

He had kept a pen,
and now he wrote something upon the paper,
and in lieu of ink he wrote
with blood.

The moon afforded him enough light
to see;
and,
having replaced the paper,
he laid the little box upon a shelf of rock.

It would remain there unaffected by dust,
moisture,
heat,
time.

How long had those painted images been there clear and sharp on the dry stone walls?

There were no trails in that desert,
and always there were incalculable changes.

Cameron saw this mutable mood of nature--the sands would fly and seep and carve and bury;
the floods would dig and cut;
the ledges would weather in the heat and rain;
the avalanches would slide;
the cactus seeds would roll in the wind
to catch in a niche and split the soil
with thirsty roots.

Years would pass.

Cameron seemed
to see them,
too;
and likewise destiny leading a child down into this forlorn waste,
where she would find love and fortune,
and the grave of her father.

Cameron covered the dark,
still face of his comrade from the light of the waning moon.

That action was the severing of his hold on realities.

They fell away from him in final separation.

Vaguely,
dreamily he seemed
to behold his soul.

Night merged into gray day;
and night came again,
weird and dark.

Then up out of the vast void of the desert,
from the silence and illimitableness,
trooped his phantoms of peace.

Majestically they formed around him,
marshalling and mustering in ceremonious state,
and moved
to lay upon him their passionless serenity.

Chapter I Old Friends Richard Gale reflected that his sojourn in the West had been what his disgusted father had predicted--idling here and there,
with no objective point or purpose.

It was reflection such as this,
only more serious and perhaps somewhat desperate,
that had brought Gale down
to the border.

For some time the newspapers had been printing news of Mexican revolution,
guerrilla warfare,
United States cavalry patrolling the international line,
American cowboys fighting
with the rebels,
and wild stories of bold raiders and bandits.

But as opportunity,
and adventure,
too,
had apparently given him a wide berth in Montana,
Wyoming,
Colorado,
he had struck southwest
for the Arizona border,
where he hoped
to see some stirring life.

He did not care very much what happened.

Months of futile wandering in the hope of finding a place where he fitted had inclined Richard
to his father's opinion.

It was after dark one evening in early October when Richard arrived in Casita.

He was surprised
to find that it was evidently a town of importance.

There was a jostling,
jabbering,
sombreroed crowd of Mexicans around the railroad station.

He felt as if he were in a foreign country.

After a while he saw several men of his nationality,
one of whom he engaged
to carry his luggage
to a hotel.

They walked up a wide,
well-lighted street lined
with buildings in which were bright windows.

Of the many people encountered by Gale most were Mexicans.

His guide explained that the smaller half of Casita lay in Arizona,
the other half in Mexico,
and of several thousand inhabitants the majority belonged on the southern side of the street,
which was the boundary line.

He also said that rebels had entered the town that day,
causing a good deal of excitement.

Gale was almost at the end of his financial resources,
which fact occasioned him
to turn away from a pretentious hotel and
to ask his guide
for a cheaper lodging-house.

When this was found,
a sight of the loungers in the office,
and also a desire
for comfort,
persuaded Gale
to change his traveling-clothes
for rough outing garb and boots.

"Well,
I'm almost broke,"
he soliloquized,
thoughtfully.

"The governor said I wouldn't make any money.

He's right--so far.

And he said I'd be coming home beaten.

There he's wrong.

I've got a hunch that something
'll happen
to me in this Greaser town."

He went out into a wide,
whitewashed,
high-ceiled corridor,
and from that into an immense room which,
but
for pool tables,
bar,
benches,
would have been like a courtyard.

The floor was cobblestoned,
the walls were of adobe,
and the large windows opened like doors.

A blue cloud of smoke filled the place.

Gale heard the click of pool balls and the clink of glasses along the crowded bar.

Bare-legged,
sandal-footed Mexicans in white rubbed shoulders
with Mexicans mantled in black and red.

There were others in tight-fitting blue uniforms
with gold fringe or tassels at the shoulders.

These men wore belts
with heavy,
bone-handled guns,
and evidently were the rurales,
or native policemen.

There were black-bearded,
coarse-visaged Americans,
some gambling round the little tables,
others drinking.

The pool tables were the center of a noisy crowd of younger men,
several of whom were unsteady on their feet.

There were khaki-clad cavalrymen strutting in and out.

At one end of the room,
somewhat apart from the general meelee,
was a group of six men round a little table,
four of whom were seated,
the other two standing.

These last two drew a second glance from Gale.

The sharp-featured,
bronzed faces and piercing eyes,
the tall,
slender,
loosely jointed bodies,
the quiet,
easy,
reckless air that seemed
to be a part of the men--these things would plainly have stamped them as cowboys without the buckled sombreros,
the colored scarfs,
the high-topped,
high-heeled boots
with great silver-roweled spurs.

Gale did not fail
to note,
also,
that these cowboys wore guns,
and this fact was rather a shock
to his idea of the modern West.

It caused him
to give some credence
to the rumors of fighting along the border,
and he felt a thrill.

He satisfied his hunger in a restaurant adjoining,
and as he stepped back into the saloon a man wearing a military cape jostled him.

Apologies from both were instant.

Gale was moving on when the other stopped short as if startled,
and,
leaning forward,
exclaimed:

"Dick Gale?"
"You've got me,"
replied Gale,
in surprise.

"But I don't know you."

He could not see the stranger's face,
because it was wholly shaded by a wide-brimmed hat pulled well down.

"By Jove! It's Dick! If this isn't great! Don't you know me?"
"I've heard your voice somewhere,"
replied Gale.

"Maybe I'll recognize you if you come out from under that bonnet."

For answer the man,
suddenly manifesting thought of himself,
hurriedly drew Gale into the restaurant,
where he thrust back his hat
to disclose a handsome,
sunburned face.

"George @Thorne! So help me--"
"'S-s-ssh.

You needn't yell,"
interrupted the other,
as he met Gale's outstretched hand.

There was a close,
hard,
straining grip.

"I must not be recognized here.

There are reasons.

I'll explain in a minute.

Say,
but it's fine
to see you! Five years,
Dick,
five years since I saw you run down University Field and spread-eagle the whole Wisconsin football team."

"Don't recollect that,"
replied Dick,
laughing.

"George,
I'll bet you I'm gladder
to see you than you are
to see me.

It seems
to long.

You went into the army,
didn't you?"
"I did.

I'm here now
with the Ninth Cavalry.

But--never mind me.

What're you doing way down here?

Say,
I just noticed your togs.

Dick,
you can't be going in
for mining or ranching,
not in this God-forsaken desert?"
"On the square,
George,
I don't know any more why I'm here than--than you know."

"Well,
that beats me!"
ejaculated Thorne,
sitting back in his chair,
amaze and concern in his expression.

"What the devil's wrong?

Your old man's got too much money
for you ever
to be up against it.

Dick,
you couldn't have gone
to the bad?"
A tide of emotion surged over Gale.

How good it was
to meet a friend--some one
to whom
to talk! He had never appreciated his loneliness until that moment.

"George,
how I ever drifted down here I don't know.

I didn't exactly quarrel
with the governor.

But--damn it,
Dad hurt me--shamed me,
and I dug out
for the West.

It was this way.

After leaving college I tried
to please him by tackling one thing after another that he set me
to do.

On the square,
I had no head
for business.

I made a mess of everything.

The governor got sore.

He kept ramming the harpoon into me till I just couldn't stand it.

What little ability I possessed deserted me when I got my back up,
and there you are.

Dad and I had a rather uncomfortable half hour.

When I quit--when I told him straight out that I was going West
to fare
for myself,
why,
it wouldn't have been so tough if he hadn't laughed at me.

He called me a rich man's son--an idle,
easy-going spineless swell.

He said I didn't even have character enough
to be out and out bad.

He said I didn't have sense enough
to marry one of the nice girls in my sister's crowd.

He said I couldn't get back home unless I sent
to him
for money.

He said he didn't believe I could fight--could really make a fight
for anything under the sun.

Oh--he--he shot it into me,
all right."

Dick dropped his head upon his hands,
somewhat ashamed of the smarting dimness in his eyes.

He had not meant
to say so much.

Yet what a relief
to let out that long-congested burden!
"Fight!"
cried Thorne,
hotly.

"What's ailing him?

Didn't they call you Biff Gale in college?

Dick,
you were one of the best men Stagg ever developed.

I heard him say so--that you were the fastest,
one-hundred-and-seventy-five-pound man he'd ever trained,
the hardest
to stop."

"The governor didn't count football,"
said Dick.

"He didn't mean that kind of fight.

When I left home I don't think I had an idea what was wrong
with me.

But,
George,
I think I know now.

I was a rich man's son--spoiled,
dependent,
absolutely ignorant of the value of money.

I haven't yet discovered any earning capacity in me.

I seem
to be unable
to do anything
with my hands.

That's the trouble.

But I'm at the end of my tether now.

And I'm going
to punch cattle or be a miner,
or do some real stunt--like joining the rebels."

"Aha! I thought you'd spring that last one on me,"
declared Thorne,
wagging his head.

"Well,
you just forget it.

Say,
old boy,
there's something doing in Mexico.

The United States in general doesn't realize it.

But across that line there are crazy revolutionists,
ill-paid soldiers,
guerrilla leaders,
raiders,
robbers,
outlaws,
bandits galore,
starving peons by the thousand,
girls and women in terror.

Mexico is like some of her volcanoes--ready
to erupt fire and hell! Don't make the awful mistake of joining rebel forces.

Americans are hated by Mexicans of the lower class-- the fighting class,
both rebel and federal.

Half the time these crazy Greasers are on one side,
then on the other.

If you didn't starve or get shot in ambush,
or die of thirst,
some Greaser would knife you in the back
for you belt buckle or boots.

There are a good many Americans
with the rebels eastward toward Agua,
Prieta and Juarez.

Orozco is operating in Chihuahua,
and I guess he has some idea of warfare.

But this Sonora,
a mountainous desert,
the home of the slave and the Yaqui.

There's unorganized revolt everywhere.

The American miners and ranchers,
those who could get away,
have fled across into the States,
leaving property.

Those who couldn't or wouldn't come must fight
for their lives,
are fighting now."

"That's bad,"
said Gale.

"It's news
to me.

Why doesn't the government take action,
do something?"
"Afraid of international complications.

Don't want
to offend the Maderists,
or be criticized by jealous foreign nations.

It's a delicate situation,
Dick.

The Washington officials know the gravity of it,
you can bet.

But the United States in general is in the dark,
and the army--well,
you ought
to hear the inside talk back at San Antonio.

We're patrolling the boundary line.

We're making a grand bluff.

I could tell you of a dozen instances where cavalry should have pursued raiders on the other side of the line.

But we won't do it.

The officers are a grouchy lot these days.

You see,
of course,
what significance would attach
to United States cavalry going into Mexican territory.

There would simply be hell.

My own colonel is the sorest man on the job.

We're all sore.

It's like sitting on a powder magazine.

We can't keep the rebels and raiders from crossing the line.

Yet we don't fight.

My commission expires soon.

I'll be discharged in three months.

You can bet I'm glad
for more reasons than I've mentioned."

Thorne was evidently laboring under strong,
suppressed excitement.

His face showed pale under the tan,
and his eyes gleamed
with a dark fire.

Occasionally his delight at meeting,
talking
with Gale,
dominated the other emotions,
but not
for long.

He had seated himself at a table near one of the doorlike windows leading into the street,
and every little while he would glance sharply out.

Also he kept consulting his watch.

These details gradually grew upon Gale as Thorne talked.

"George,
it strikes me that you're upset,"
said Dick,
presently.

"I seem
to remember you as a cool-headed fellow whom nothing could disturb.

Has the army changed you?"
Thorne laughed.

It was a laugh
with a strange,
high note.

It was reckless--it hinted of exaltation.

He rose abruptly;
he gave the water money
to go
for drinks;
he looked into the saloon,
and then into the street.

On this side of the house there was a porch opening on a plaza
with trees and shrubbery and branches.

Thorne peered out one window,
then another.

His actions were rapid.

Returning
to the table,
he put his hands upon it and leaned over
to look closely into Gale's face.

"I'm away from camp without leave,"
he said.

"Isn't that a serious offense?"
asked Dick.

"Serious?

For me,
if I'm discovered,
it means ruin.

There are rebels in town.

Any moment we might have trouble.

I ought
to be ready
for duty--within call.

If I'm discovered it means arrest.

That means delay--the failure of my plans--ruin."

Gale was silenced by his friend's intensity.

Thorne bent over closer
with his dark eyes searching bright.

"we were old pals--once?"
"Surely,"
replied Dick.

"What would you say,
Dick Gale,
if I told you that you're the one man I'd rather have had come along than any other at this crisis of my life?"
The earnest gaze,
the passionate voice
with its deep tremor drew Dick upright,
thrilling and eager,
conscious of strange,
unfamiliar impetuosity.

"Thorne,
I should say I was glad
to be the fellow,"
replied Dick.

Their hands locked
for a moment,
and they sat down again
with heads close over the table.

"Listen,"
began Thorne,
in low,
swift whisper,
"a few days,
a week ago--it seems like a year!--I was of some assistance
to refugees fleeing from Mexico into the States.

They were all women,
and one of them was dressed as a nun.

Quite by accident I saw her face.

It was that of a beautiful girl.

I observed she kept aloof from the others.

I suspected a disguise,
and,
when opportunity afforded,
spoke
to her,
offered my services.

She replied
to my poor efforts at Spanish in fluent English.

She had fled in terror from her home,
some place down in Sinaloa.

Rebels are active there.

Her father was captured and held
for ransom.

When the ransom was paid the rebels killed him..

the leader of these rebels was a bandit named Rojas.

Long before the revolution began he had been feared by people of class--loved by the peons.

Bandits are worshiped by the peons.

All of the famous bandits have robbed the rich and given
to the poor.

Rojas saw the daughter,
made off
with her.

But she contrived
to bribe her guards,
and escaped almost immediately before any harm befell her.

She hid among friends.

Rojas nearly tore down the town in his efforts
to find her.

Then she disguised herself,
and traveled by horseback,
stage,
and train
to Casita.

"Her story fascinated me,
and that one fleeting glimpse I had of her face I couldn't forget.

She had no friends here,
no money.

She knew Rojas was trailing her.

This talk I had
with her was at the railroad station,
where all was bustle and confusion.

No one noticed us,
so I thought.

I advised her
to remove the disguise of a nun before she left the waiting-room.

And I got a boy
to guide her.

But he fetched her
to his house.

I had promised
to come in the evening
to talk over the situation
with her.

"I found her,
Dick,
and when I saw her--I went stark,
staring,
raving mad over her.

She is the most beautiful,
wonderful girl I ever saw.

Her name is Mercedes Castaneda,
and she belongs
to one of the old wealthy Spanish families.

She has lived abroad and in Havana.

She speaks French as well as English.

She is--but I must be brief.

"Dick,
think,
think!
with Mercedes also it was love at first sight.

My plan is
to marry her and get her farther
to the interior,
away from the border.

It may not be easy.

She's watched.

So am I.

It was impossible
to see her without the women of this house knowing.

At first,
perhaps,
they had only curiosity--an itch
to gossip.

But the last two days there has been a change.

Since last night there's some powerful influence at work.

Oh,
these Mexicans are subtle,
mysterious! After all,
they are Spaniards.

They work in secret,
in the dark.

They are dominated first by religion,
then by gold,
then by passion
for a woman.

Rojas must have got word
to his friends here;
yesterday his gang of cutthroat rebels arrived,
and to-day he came.

When I learned that,
I took my chance and left camp I hunted up a priest.

He promised
to come here.

It's time he's due.

But I'm afraid he'll be stopped."

"Thorne,
why don't you take the girl and get married without waiting,
without running these risks?"
said Dick.

"I fear it's too late now.

I should have done that last night.

You see,
we're over the line--"
"Are we in Mexican territory now?"
queried Gale,
sharply.

"I guess yes,
old boy.

That's what complicates it.

Rojas and his rebels have Casita in their hands.

But Rojas without his rebels would be able
to stop me,
get the girl,
and make
for his mountain haunts.

If Mercedes is really watched--if her identity is known,
which I am sure is the case--we couldn't get far from this house before I'd be knifed and she seized."

"Good Heavens! Thorne,
can that sort of thing happen less than a stone's throw from the United States line?"
asked Gale,
incredulously.

"It can happen,
and don't you forget it.

You don't seem
to realize the power these guerrilla leaders,
these rebel captains,
and particularly these bandits,
exercise over the mass of Mexicans.

A bandit is a man of honor in Mexico.

He is feared,
envied,
loved.

In the hearts of the people he stands next
to the national idol--the bull-fighter,
the matador.

The race has a wild,
barbarian,
bloody strain.

Take Quinteros,
for instance.

He was a peon,
a slave.

He became a famous bandit.

At the outbreak of the revolution he proclaimed himself a leader,
and
with a band of followers he devastated whole counties.

The opposition
to federal forces was only a blind
to rob and riot and carry off women.

The motto of this man and his followers was:

'Let us enjoy ourselves while we may!'
"There are other bandits besides Quinteros,
not so famous or such great leaders,
but just as bloodthirsty.

I've seen Rojas.

He's a handsome,
bold sneering devil,
vainer than any peacock.

He decks himself in gold lace and sliver trappings,
in all the finery he can steal.

He was one of the rebels who helped sack Sinaloa and carry off half a million in money and valuables.

Rojas spends gold like he spills blood.

But he is chiefly famous
for abducting women.

the peon girls consider it an honor
to be ridden off with.

Rojas has shown a penchant
for girls of the better class."

Thorne wiped the perspiration from his pale face and bent a dark gaze out of the window before he resumed his talk.

"Consider what the position of Mercedes really is.

I can't get any help from our side of the line.

If so,
I don't know where.

The population on that side is mostly Mexican,
absolutely in sympathy
with whatever actuates those on this side.

The whole caboodle of Greasers on both sides belong
to the class in sympathy
with the rebels,
the class that secretly respects men like Rojas,
and hates an aristocrat like Mercedes.

They would conspire
to throw her into his power.

Rojas can turn all the hidden underground influences
to his ends.

Unless I thwart him he'll get Mercedes as easily as he can light a cigarette.

But I'll kill him or some of his gang or her before I let him get her.

.

.

.

This is the situation,
old friend.

I've little time
to spare.

I face arrest
for desertion.

Rojas is in town.

I think I was followed
to this hotel.

The priest has betrayed me or has been stopped.

Mercedes is here alone,
waiting,
absolutely dependent upon me
to save her from--from....She's the sweetest,
loveliest girl!...In a few moments--sooner or later there'll be hell here! Dick,
are you
with me?"
Dick Gale drew a long,
deep breath.

A coldness,
a lethargy,
an indifference that had weighed upon him
for months had passed out of his being.

On the instant he could not speak,
but his hand closed powerfully upon his friend's.

Thorne's face changed wonderfully,
the distress,
the fear,
the appeal all vanishing in a smile of passionate gratefulness.

Then Dick's gaze,
attracted by some slight sound,
shot over his friend's shoulder
to see a face at the window--a handsome,
bold,
sneering face,
with glittering dark eyes that flashed in sinister intentness.

Dick stiffened in his seat.

Thorne,
with sudden clenching of hands,
wheeled toward the window.

"Rojas!"
he whispered.

Chapter II Mercedes Castaneda The dark face vanished.

Dick Gale heard footsteps and the tinkle of spurs.

He strode
to the window,
and was in time
to see a Mexican swagger into the front door of the saloon.

Dick had only a glimpse;
but in that he saw a huge black sombrero
with a gaudy band,
the back of a short,
tight-fitting jacket,
a heavy pearl-handled gun swinging
with a fringe of sash,
and close-fitting trousers spreading wide at the bottom.

There were men passing in the street,
also several Mexicans lounging against the hitching-rail at the curb.

"Did you see him?

Where did he go?"
whispered Thorne,
as he joined Gale.

"Those Greasers out there
with the cartridge belts crossed over their breasts--they are rebels."

"I think he went into the saloon,"
replied Dick.

"He had a gun,
but
for all I can see the Greasers out there are unarmed."

"Never believe it! There! Look,
Dick! That fellow's a guard,
though he seems so unconcerned.

See,
he has a short carbine,
almost concealed....There's another Greaser farther down the path.

I'm afraid Rojas has the house spotted."

"If we could only be sure."

"I'm sure,
Dick.

Let's cross the hall;
I want
to see how it looks from the other side of the house."

Gale followed Thorne out of the restaurant into the high-ceiled corridor which evidently divided the hotel,
opening into the street and running back
to a patio.

A few dim,
yellow lamps flickered.

A Mexican
with a blanket round his shoulders stood in the front entrance.

Back toward the patio there were sounds of boots on the stone floor.

Shadows flitted across that end of the corridor.

Thorne entered a huge chamber which was even more poorly lighted than the hall.

It contained a table littered
with papers,
a few high-backed chairs,
a couple of couches,
and was evidently a parlor.

"Mercedes has been meeting me here,"
said thorne.

"At this hour she comes every moment or so
to the head of the stairs there,
and if I am here she comes down.

Mostly there are people in this room a little later.

We go out into the plaza.

It faces the dark side of the house,
and that's the place I must slip out
with her if there's any chance at all
to get away."

They peered out of the open window.

The plaza was gloomy,
and at first glance apparently deserted.

In a moment,
however,
Gale made out a slow-pacing dark form on the path.

Farther down there was another.

No particular keenness was required
to see in these forms a sentinel-like stealthiness.

Gripping Gale's arm,
Thorne pulled back from the window.

"You saw them,"
he whispered.

"It's just as I feared.

Rojas has the place surrounded.

I should have taken Mercedes away.

But I had no time--no chance! I'm bound!...There's Mercedes now! My God!...Dick,
think--think if there's a way
to get her out of this trap!"
Gale turned as his friend went down the room.

In the dim light at the head of the stairs stood the slim,
muffled figure of a woman.

When she saw Thorne she flew noiselessly down the stairway
to him.

He caught her in his arms.

Then she spoke softly,
brokenly,
in a low,
swift voice.

It was a mingling of incoherent Spanish and English;
but
to Gale it was mellow,
deep,
unutterably tender,
a voice full of joy,
fear,
passion,
hope,
and love.

Upon Gale it had an unaccountable effect.

He found himself thrilling,
wondering.

Thorne led the girl
to the center of the room,
under the light where Gale stood.

She had raised a white hand,
holding a black-laced mantilla half aside.

Dick saw a small,
dark head,
proudly held,
an oval face half hidden,
white as a flower,
and magnificent black eyes.

Then Thorne spoke.

"Mercedes--Dick Gale,
an old friend--the best friend I ever had."

She swept the mantilla back over her head,
disclosing a lovely face,
strange and striking
to Gale in its pride and fire,
its intensity.

"Senor Gale--ah! I cannot speak my happiness.

His friend!"
"Yes,
Mercedes;
my friend and yours,"
said Thorne,
speaking rapidly.

"We'll have need of him.

Dear,
there's bad news and no time
to break it gently.

the priest did not come.

He must have been detained.

And listen--be brave,
dear Mercedes--Rojas is here!"
She uttered an inarticulate cry,
the poignant terror of which shook Gale's nerve,
and swayed as if she would faint.

Thorne caught her,
and in husky voice importuned her
to bear up.

"My darling!
for God's sake don't faint--don't go
to pieces! We'd be lost! We've got a chance.

We'll think of something.

Be strong! Fight!"
It was plain
to Gale that Thorne was distracted.

He scarcely knew what he was saying.

Please and shaking,
he clasped Mercedes
to him.

Her terror had struck him helpless.

It was so intense--it was so full of horrible certainty of what fate awaited her.

She cried out in Spanish,
beseeching him;
and as he shook his head,
she changed
to English:

"Senor,
my lover,
I will be strong--I will fight--I will obey.

But swear by my Virgin,
if need be
to save me from Rojas--you will kill me!"
"Mercedes! Yes,
I'll swear,"
he replied hoarsely.

"I know--I'd rather have you dead than-- But don't give up.

Rojas can't be sure of you,
or he wouldn't wait.

He's in there.

He's got his men there--all around us.

But he hesitates.

A beast like Rojas doesn't stand idle
for nothing.

I tell you we've a chance.

Dick,
here,
will think of something.

We'll slip away.

Then he'll take you somewhere.

Only--speak
to him--show him you won't weaken.

Mercedes,
this is more than love and happiness
for us.

It's life or death."

She became quiet,
and slowly recovered control of herself.

Suddenly she wheeled
to face Gale
with proud dark eyes,
tragic sweetness of appeal,
and exquisite grace.

"Senor,
you are an American.

You cannot know the Spanish blood--the peon bandit's hate and cruelty.

I wish
to die before Rojas's hand touches me.

If he takes me alive,
then the hour,
the little day that my life lasts afterward will be tortured--torture of hell.

If I live two days his brutal men will have me.

If I live three,
the dogs of his camp...Senor,
have you a sister whom you love?

Help Senor Thorne
to save me.

He is a soldier.

He is bound.

He must not betray his honor,
his duty,
for me....Ah,
you two splendid Americans--so big,
so strong,
so fierce! What is that little black half-breed slave Rojas
to such men?

Rojas is a coward.

Now,
let me waste no more precious time.

I am ready.

I will be brave."

She came close
to Gale,
holding out her white hands,
a woman all fire and soul and passion.

to Gale she was wonderful.

His heart leaped.

As he bent over her hands and kissed them he seemed
to feel himself renewed,
remade.

"Senorita,"
he said,
"I am happy
to be your servant.

I can conceive of no greater pleasure than giving the service you require."

"And what is that?"
inquired Thorne,
hurriedly.

"That of incapacitating Senor Rojas
for to-night,
and perhaps several nights
to come,"
replied Gale.

"Dick,
what will you do?"
asked Thorne,
now in alarm.

"I'll make a row in that saloon,"
returned Dick,
bluntly.

"I'll start something.

I'll rush Rojas and his crowd.

I'll--"
"Lord,
no;
you mustn't,
Dick--you'll be knifed!"
cried Thorne.

He was in distress,
yet his eyes were shining.

"I'll take a chance.

Maybe I can surprise that slow Greaser bunch and get away before they know what's happened....You be ready watching at the window.

When the row starts those fellows out there in the plaza will run into the saloon.

Then you slip out,
go straight through the plaza down the street.

It's a dark street,
I remember.

I'll catch up
with you before you get far."

Thorne gasped,
but did not say a word.

Mercedes leaned against him,
her white hands now at her breast,
her great eyes watching Gale as he went out.

In the corridor Gale stopped long enough
to pull on a pair of heavy gloves,
to muss his hair,
and disarrange his collar.

Then he stepped into the restaurant,
went through,
and halted in the door leading into the saloon.

His five feet eleven inches and one hundred and eighty pounds were more noticeable there,
and it was part of his plan
to attract attention
to himself.

No one,
however,
appeared
to notice him.

The pool-players were noisily intent on their game,
the same crowd of motley-robed Mexicans hung over the reeking bar.

Gale's roving glance soon fixed upon the man he took
to be Rojas.

He recognized the huge,
high-peaked,
black sombrero
with its ornamented band.

The Mexican's face was turned aside.

He was in earnest,
excited colloquy
with a dozen or more comrades,
most of whom were sitting round a table.

They were listening,
talking,
drinking.

The fact that they wore cartridge belts crossed over their breasts satisfied that these were the rebels.

He had noted the belts of the Mexicans outside,
who were apparently guards.

A waiter brought more drinks
to this group at the table,
and this caused the leader
to turn so Gale could see his face.

It was indeed the sinister,
sneering face of the bandit Rojas.

Gale gazed at the man
with curiosity.

He was under medium height,
and striking in appearance only because of his dandified dress and evil visage.

He wore a lace scarf,
a tight,
bright-buttoned jacket,
a buckskin vest embroidered in red,
a sash and belt joined by an enormous silver clasp.

Gale saw again the pearl-handled gun swinging at the bandit's hip.

Jewels flashed in his scarf.

There were gold rings in his ears and diamonds on his fingers.

Gale became conscious of an inward fire that threatened
to overrun his coolness.

Other emotions harried his self-control.

It seemed as if sight of the man liberated or created a devil in Gale.

And at the bottom of his feelings there seemed
to be a wonder at himself,
a strange satisfaction
for the something that had come
to him.

He stepped out of the doorway,
down the couple of steps
to the floor of the saloon,
and he staggered a little,
simulating drunkenness.

He fell over the pool tables,
jostled Mexicans at the bar,
laughed like a maudlin fool,
and,
with his hat slouched down,
crowded here and there.

Presently his eye caught sight of the group of cowboys whom he had before noticed
with such interest.

They were still in a corner somewhat isolated.

With fertile mind working,
Gale lurched over
to them.

He remembered his many unsuccessful attempts
to get acquainted
with cowboys.

If he were
to get any help from these silent aloof rangers it must be by striking fire from them in one swift stroke.

Planting himself squarely before the two tall cowboys who were standing,
he looked straight into their lean,
bronzed faces.

He spared a full moment
for that keen cool gaze before he spoke.

"I'm not drunk.

I'm throwing a bluff,
and I mean
to start a rough house.

I'm going
to rush that damned bandit Rojas.

It's
to save a girl--to give her lover,
who is my friend,
a chance
to escape
with her.

When I start a row my friend will try
to slip out
with her.

Every door and window is watched.

I've got
to raise hell
to draw the guards in....

Well,
you're my countrymen.

We're in Mexico.

A beautiful girl's honor and life are at stake.

Now,
gentlemen,
watch me!"
One cowboy's eyes narrowed,
blinking a little,
and his lean jaw dropped;
the other's hard face rippled
with a fleeting smile.

Gale backed away,
and his pulse leaped when he saw the two cowboys,
as if
with one purpose,
slowly stride after him.

Then Gale swerved,
staggering along,
brushed against the tables,
kicked over the empty chairs.

He passed Rojas and his gang,
and out of the tail of his eye saw that the bandit was watching him,
waving his hands and talking fiercely.

The hum of the many voices grew louder,
and when Dick lurched against a table,
overturning it and spilling glasses into the laps of several Mexicans,
there arose a shrill cry.

He had succeeded in attracting attention;
almost every face turned his way.

One of the insulted men,
a little tawny fellow,
leaped up
to confront Gale,
and in a frenzy screamed a volley of Spanish,
of which Gale distinguished
"Gringo!"
The Mexican stamped and made a threatening move
with his right hand.

Dick swung his leg and
with a swift side kick knocked the fellows feet from under him,
whirling him down
with a thud.

The action was performed so suddenly,
so adroitly,
it made the Mexican such a weakling,
so like a tumbled tenpin,
that the shrill jabbering hushed.

Gale knew this
to be the significant moment.

Wheeling,
he rushed at Rojas.

It was his old line-breaking plunge.

Neither Rojas nor his men had time
to move.

The black-skinned bandit's face turned a dirty white;
his jaw dropped;
he would have shrieked if Gale had not hit him.

The blow swept him backward against his men.

Then Gale's heavy body,
swiftly following
with the momentum of that rush,
struck the little group of rebels.

They went down
with table and chairs in a sliding crash.

Gale carried by his plunge,
went
with them.

Like a cat he landed on top.

As he rose his powerful hands fastened on Rojas.

He jerked the little bandit off the tangled pile of struggling,
yelling men,
and,
swinging him
with terrific force,
let go his hold.

Rojas slid along the floor,
knocking over tables and chairs.

Gale bounded back,
dragged Rojas up,
handling him as if he were a limp sack.

A shot rang out above the yells.

Gale heard the jingle of breaking glass.

The room darkened perceptibly.

He flashed a glance backward.

The two cowboys were between him and the crowd of frantic rebels.

One cowboy held two guns low down,
level in front of him.

The other had his gun raised and aimed.

On the instant it spouted red and white.

With the crack came the crashing of glass,
another darkening shade over the room.

With a cry Gale slung the bleeding Rojas from him.

The bandit struck a table,
toppled over it,
fell,
and lay prone.

Another shot made the room full of moving shadows,
with light only back of the bar.

A white-clad figure rushed at Gale.

He tripped the man,
but had
to kick hard
to disengage himself from grasping hands.

Another figure closed in on Gale.

This one was dark,
swift.

A blade glinted--described a circle alot.

Simultaneously
with a close,
red flash the knife wavered;
the man wielding it stumbled backward.

In the din Gale did not hear a report,
but the Mexican's fall was significant.

Then pandemonium broke loose.

The din became a roar.

Gale heard shots that sounded like dull spats in the distance.

The big lamp behind the bar seemingly split,
then sputtered and went out,
leaving the room in darkness.

Gale leaped toward the restaurant door,
which was outlined faintly by the yellow light within.

Right and left he pushed the groping men who jostled
with him.

He vaulted a pool table,
sent tables and chairs flying,
and gained the door,
to be the first of a wedging mob
to squeeze through.

One sweep of his arm knocked the restaurant lamp from its stand;
and he ran out,
leaving darkness behind him.

A few bounds took him into the parlor.

It was deserted.

Thorne had gotten away
with Mercedes.

It was then Gale slowed up.

For the space of perhaps sixty seconds he had been moving
with startling velocity.

He peered cautiously out into the plaza.

The paths,
the benches,
the shady places under the trees contained no skulking men.

He ran out,
keeping
to the shade,
and did not go into the path till he was halfway through the plaza.

Under a street lamp at the far end of the path he thought he saw two dark figures.

He ran faster,
and soon reached the street.

The uproar back in the hotel began
to diminish,
or else he was getting out of hearing.

The few people he saw close at hand were all coming his way,
and only the foremost showed any excitement.

Gale walked swiftly,
peering ahead
for two figures.

Presently he saw them--one tall,
wearing a cape;
the other slight,
mantled.

Gale drew a sharp breath of relief.

Throne and Mercedes were not far ahead.

From time
to time Thorne looked back.

He strode swiftly,
almost carrying Mercedes,
who clung closely
to him.

She,
too,
looked back.

Once Gale saw her white face flash in the light of a street lamp.

He began
to overhaul them;
and soon,
when the last lamp had been passed and the street was dark,
he ventured a whistle.

Thorne heard it,
for he turned,
whistled a low reply,
and went on.

Not
for some distance beyond,
where the street ended in open country,
did they halt
to wait.

The desert began here.

Gale felt the soft sand under his feet and saw the grotesque forms of cactus.

Then he came up
with the fugitives.

"Dick! Are you--all right?"
panted Thorne,
grasping Gale.

"I'm--out of breath--but--O.K.,"
replied Gale.

"Good! Good!"
choked Thorne.

"I was scared--helpless....Dick,
it worked splendidly.

We had no trouble.

What on earth did you do?"
"I made the row,
all right,"
said Dick.

"Good Heavens! It was like a row I once heard made by a mob.

But the shots,
Dick--were they at you?

They paralyzed me.

Then the yells.

what happened?

Those guards of Rojas ran round in front at the first shot.

Tell me what happened."

"While I was rushing Rojas a couple of cowboys shot out the lamplights.

A Mexican who pulled a knife on me got hurt,
I guess.

Then I think there was some shooting from the rebels after the room was dark."

"Rushing Rojas?"
queried Thorne,
leaning close
to Dick.

His voice was thrilling,
exultant,
deep
with a joy that yet needed confirmation.

"What did you do
to him?"
"I handed him one off side,
tackled,
then tried a forward pass,"
replied Dick,
lightly speaking the football vernacular so familiar
to Thorne.

Thorne leaned closer,
his fine face showing fierce and corded in the starlight.

"Tell me straight,"
he demanded,
in thick voice.

Gale then divined something of the suffering Thorne had undergone --something of the hot,
wild,
vengeful passion of a lover who must have brutal truth.

It stilled Dick's lighter mood,
and he was about
to reply when Mercedes pressed close
to him,
touched his hands,
looked up into his face
with wonderful eyes.

He thought he would not soon forget their beauty--the shadow of pain that had been,
the hope dawning so fugitively.

"Dear lady,"
said Gale,
with voice not wholly steady,
"Rojas himself will hound you no more to-night,
nor
for many nights."

She seemed
to shake,
to thrill,
to rise
with the intelligence.

She pressed his hand close over her heaving breast.

Gale felt the quick throb of her heart.

"Senor! Senor Dick!"
she cried.

Then her voice failed.

But her hands flew up;
quick as a flash she raised her face--kissed him.

Then she turned and
with a sob fell into Thorne's arms.

There ensued a silence broken only by Mercedes'
sobbing.

Gale walked some paces away.

If he were not stunned,
he certainly was agitated.

the strange,
sweet fire of that girl's lips remained
with him.

On the spur of the moment he imagined he had a jealousy of Thorne.

But presently this passed.

It was only that he had been deeply moved--stirred
to the depths during the last hour--had become conscious of the awakening of a spirit.

What remained
with him now was the splendid glow of gladness that he had been of service
to Thorne.

And by the intensity of Mercedes'
abandon of relief and gratitude he measured her agony of terror and the fate he had spared her.

"Dick,
Dick,
come here!"
called Thorne softly.

"Let's pull ourselves together now.

We've got a problem yet.

What
to do?

Where
to go?

How
to get any place?

We don't dare risk the station--the corrals where Mexicans hire out horses.

We're on gold old U.S.

ground this minute,
but we're not out of danger."

As he paused,
evidently hoping
for a suggestion from Gale,
the silence was broken by the clear,
ringing peal of a bugle.

Thorne gave a violent start.

Then he bent over,
listening.

The beautiful notes of the bugle floated out of the darkness,
clearer,
sharper,
faster.

"It's a call,
Dick! It's a call!"
he cried.

Gale had no answer
to make.

Mercedes stood as if stricken.

The bugle call ended.

From a distance another faintly pealed.

There were other sounds too remote
to recognize.

Then scattering shots rattled out.

"Dick,
the rebels are fighting somebody,"
burst out Thorne,
excitedly.

"The little federal garrison still holds its stand.

Perhaps it is attacked again.

Anyway,
there's something doing over the line.

Maybe the crazy Greasers are firing on our camp.

We've feared it--in the dark....And here I am,
away without leave--practically a deserter!"
"Go back! Go back,
before you're too late!"
cried Mercedes.

"Better make tracks,
Thorne,"
added Gale.

"It can't help our predicament
for you
to be arrested.

I'll take care of Mercedes."

"No,
no,
no,"
replied Thorne.

"I can get away--avoid arrest."

"That'd be all right
for the immediate present.

But it's not best
for the future.

George,
a deserter is a deserter!...Better hurry.

Leave the girl
to me till tomorrow."

Mercedes embraced her lover,
begged him
to go.

Thorne wavered.

"Dick,
I'm up against it,"
he said.

"You're right.

If only I can get back in time.

but,
oh,
I hate
to leave her! Old fellow,
you've saved her! I already owe you everlasting gratitude.

Keep out of Casita,
Dick.

The U.S.

side might be safe,
but I'm afraid
to trust it at night.

Go out in the desert,
up in the mountains,
in some safe place.

Then come
to me in camp.

We'll plan.

I'll have
to confide in Colonel Weede.

Maybe he'll help us.

Hide her from the rebels--that's all."

He wrung Dick's hand,
clasped Mercedes tightly in his arms,
kissed her,
and murmured low over her,
then released her
to rush off into the darkness.

He disappeared in the gloom.

The sound of his dull footfalls gradually died away.

For a moment the desert silence oppressed Gale.

He was unaccustomed
to such strange stillness.

There was a low stir of sand,
a rustle of stiff leaves in the wind.

How white the stars burned! Then a coyote barked,
to be bayed by a dog.

Gale realized that he was between the edge of an unknown desert and the edge of a hostile town.

He had
to choose the desert,
because,
though he had no doubt that in Casita there were many Americans who might befriend him,
he could not chance the risks of seeking them at night.

He felt a slight touch on his arm,
felt it move down,
felt Mercedes slip a trembling cold little hand into his.

Dick looked at her.

She seemed a white-faced girl now,
with staring,
frightened black eyes that flashed up at him.

If the loneliness,
the silence,
the desert,
the unknown dangers of the night affected him,
what must they be
to this hunted,
driven girl?

Gale's heart swelled.

He was alone
with her.

He had no weapon,
no money,
no food,
no drink,
no covering,
nothing except his two hands.

He had absolutely no knowledge of the desert,
of the direction or whereabouts of the boundary line between the republics;
he did not know where
to find the railroad,
or any road or trail,
or whether or not there were towns near or far.

It was a critical,
desperate situation.

He thought first of the girl,
and groaned in spirit,
prayed that it would be given him
to save her.

When he remembered himself it was
with the stunning consciousness that he could conceive of no situation which he would have exchanged
for this one--where fortune had set him a perilous task of loyalty
to a friend,
to a helpless girl.

"Senor,
senor!"
suddenly whispered Mercedes,
clinging
to him.

"Listen! I hear horses coming!"
Chapter III A Flight Into The Desert Uneasy and startled,
Gale listened and,
hearing nothing,
wondered if Mercedes's fears had not worked upon her imagination.

He felt a trembling seize her,
and he held her hands tightly.

"You were mistaken,
I guess,"
he whispered.

"No,
no,
senor."

Dick turned his ear
to the soft wind.

Presently he heard,
or imagined he heard,
low beats.

Like the first faint,
far-off beats of a drumming grouse,
they recalled
to him the Illinois forests of his boyhood.

In a moment he was certain the sounds were the padlike steps of hoofs in yielding sand.

The regular tramp was not that of grazing horses.

On the instant,
made cautious and stealthy by alarm,
Gale drew Mercedes deeper into the gloom of the shrubbery.

Sharp pricks from thorns warned him that he was pressing into a cactus growth,
and he protected Mercedes as best he could.

She was shaking as one
with a sever chill.

She breathed
with little hurried pants and leaned upon him almost in collapse.

Gale ground his teeth in helpless rage at the girl's fate.

If she had not been beautiful she might still have been free and happy in her home.

What a strange world
to live in--how unfair was fate! The sounds of hoofbeats grew louder.

Gale made out a dark moving mass against a background of dull gray.

There was a line of horses.

He could not discern whether or not all the horses carried riders.

The murmur of a voice struck his ear--then a low laugh.

It made him tingle,
for it sounded American.

Eagerly he listened.

There was an interval when only the hoofbeats could be heard.

"It shore was,
Laddy,
it shore was,"
came a voice out of the darkness.

"Rough house! Laddy,
since wire fences drove us out of Texas we ain't seen the like of that.

An'
we never had such a call."

"Call?

It was a burnin'
roast,"
replied another voice.

"I felt low down.

He vamoosed some sudden,
an'
I hope he an'
his friends shook the dust of Casita.

That's a rotten town Jim."

Gale jumped up in joy.

What luck! The speakers were none other than the two cowboys whom he had accosted in the Mexican hotel.

"Hold on ,
fellows,"
he called out,
and strode into the road.

The horses snorted and stamped.

Then followed swift rustling sounds--a clinking of spurs,
then silence.

The figures loomed clearer in the gloom..

Gale saw five or six horses,
two
with riders,
and one other,
at least,
carrying a pack.

When Gale got within fifteen feet of the group the foremost horseman said:

"I reckon that's close enough,
stranger."

Something in the cowboy's hand glinted darkly bright in the starlight.

"You'd recognize me,
if it wasn't so dark,"
replied Gale,
halting.

"I spoke
to you a little while ago--in the saloon back there."

"Come over an'
let's see you,"
said the cowboy curtly.

Gale advanced till he was close
to the horse.

The cowboy leaned over the saddle and peered into Gale's face.

Then,
without a word,
he sheathed the gun and held out his hand.

Gale met a grip of steel that warmed his blood.

The other cowboy got off his nervous,
spirited horse and threw the bridle.

He,
too,
peered closely into Gale's face.

"My name's Ladd,"
he said.

"Reckon I'm some glad
to meet you again.?

Gale felt another grip as hard and strong as the other had been.

He realized he had found friends who belonged
to a class of men whom he had despaired of ever knowing.

"Gale--Dick Gale is my name,"
he began,
swiftly.

"I dropped into Casita to-night hardly knowing where I was.

A boy took me
to that hotel.

There I met an old friend whom I had not seen
for years.

He belongs
to the cavalry stationed here.

He had befriended a Spanish girl--fallen in love
with her.

Rojas had killed this girl's father--tried
to abduct her....You know what took place at the hotel.

Gentlemen,
if it's ever possible,
I'll show you how I appreciate what you did
for me there.

I got away,
found my friend
with the girl.

We hurried out here beyond the edge of town.

Then Thorne had
to make a break
for camp.

We heard bugle calls,
shots,
and he was away without leave.

That left the girl
with me.

I don't know what
to do.

Thorne swears Casita is no place
for Mercedes at night."

"The girl ain't no peon,
no common Greaser?"
interrupted Ladd.

"No.

Her name is Castaneda.

She belongs
to an old Spanish family,
once rich and influential."

"Reckoned as much,"
replied the cowboy.

"There's more than Rojas's wantin'
to kidnap a pretty girl.

Shore he does that every day or so.

Must be somethin'
political or feelin'
against class.

Well,
Casita ain't no place
for your friend's girl at night or day,
or any time.

Shore,
there's Americans who'd take her in an'
fight
for her,
if necessary.

But it ain't wise
to risk that.

Lash,
what do you say?"
"It's been gettin'
hotter round this Greaser corral
for some weeks,"
replied the other cowboy.

"If that two-bit of a garrison surrenders,
there's no tellin'
what'll happen.

Orozco is headin'
west from Agua Prieta
with his guerrillas.

Campo is burnin'
bridges an'
tearin'
up the railroad south of Nogales.

Then there's all these bandits callin'
themselves revolutionists just
for an excuse
to steal,
burn,
kill,
an'
ride off
with women.

It's plain facts,
Laddy,
an'
bein'
across the U.S.

line a few inches or so don't make no hell of a difference.

My advice is,
don't let Miss Castaneda ever set foot in Casita again."

"Looks like you've shore spoke sense,"
said Ladd.

"I reckon,
Gale,
you an'
the girl ought
to come
with us.

Casita shore would be a little warm
for us to-morrow.

We didn't kill anybody,
but I shot a Greaser's arm off,
an'
Lash strained friendly relations by destroyin'
property.

We know people who'll take care of the senorita till your friend can come
for her."

Dick warmly spoke his gratefulness,
and,
inexpressibly relieved and happy
for Mercedes,
he went toward the clump of cactus where he had left her.

She stood erect,
waiting,
and,
dark as it was,
he could tell she had lost the terror that had so shaken her.

"Senor Gale,
you are my good angel,"
she said,
tremulously.

"I've been lucky
to fall in
with these men,
and I'm glad
with all my heart,"
he replied.

"Come."

He led her into the road up
to the cowboys,
who now stood bareheaded in the starlight.

The seemed shy,
and Lash was silent while Ladd made embarrassed,
unintelligible reply
to Mercedes's's thanks.

There were five horses--two saddled,
two packed,
and the remaining one carried only a blanket.

Ladd shortened the stirrups on his mount,
and helped Mercedes up into the saddle.

From the way she settled herself and took the few restive prances of the mettlesome horse Gale judged that she could ride.

Lash urged Gale
to take his horse.

But his Gale refused
to do.

"I'll walk,"
he said.

"I'm used
to walking.

I know cowboys are not."

They tried again
to persuade him,
without avail.

Then Ladd started off,
riding bareback.

Mercedes fell in behind,
with Gale walking beside her.

The two pack animals came next,
and Lash brought up the rear.

Once started
with protection assured
for the girl and a real objective point in view,
Gale relaxed from the tense strain he had been laboring under.

How glad he would have been
to acquaint Thorne
with their good fortune! Later,
of course,
there would be some way
to get word
to the cavalryman.

But till then what torments his friend would suffer! It seemed
to Dick that a very long time had elapsed since he stepped off the train;
and one by one he went over every detail of incident which had occurred between that arrival and the present moment.

Strange as the facts were,
he had no doubts.

He realized that before that night he had never known the deeps of wrath undisturbed in him;
he had never conceived even a passing idea that it was possible
for him
to try
to kill a man.

His right hand was swollen stiff,
so sore that he could scarcely close it.

His knuckles were bruised and bleeding,
and ached
with a sharp pain.

Considering the thickness of his heavy glove,
Gale was of the opinion that so
to bruise his hand he must have struck Rojas a powerful blow.

He remembered that
for him
to give or take a blow had been nothing.

This blow
to Rojas,
however,
had been a different matter.

The hot wrath which had been his motive was not puzzling;
but the effect on him after he had cooled off,
a subtle difference,
something puzzled and eluded him.

The more it baffled him the more he pondered.

All those wandering months of his had been filled
with dissatisfaction,
yet he had been too apathetic
to understand himself.

So he had not been much of a person
to try..

Perhaps it had not been the blow
to Rojas any more than other things that had wrought some change in him.

His meeting
with Thorne;
the wonderful black eyes of a Spanish girl;
her appeal
to him;
the hate inspired by Rojas,
and the rush,
the blow,
the action;
sight of Thorne and Mercedes hurrying safely away;
the girl's hand pressing his
to her heaving breast;
the sweet fire of her kiss;
the fact of her being alone
with him,
dependent upon him-- all these things Gale turned over and over in his mind,
only
to fail of any definite conclusion as
to which had affect him so remarkably,
or
to tell what had really happened
to him.

Had he fallen in love
with Thorne's sweetheart?

The idea came in a flash.

Was he,
all in an instant,
and by one of those incomprehensible reversals of character,
jealous of his friend?

Dick was almost afraid
to look up at Mercedes.

Still he forced himself
to do so,
and as it chanced Mercedes was looking down at him.

Somehow the light was better,
and he clearly saw her white face,
her black and starry eyes,
her perfect mouth.

With a quick,
graceful impulsiveness she put her hand upon his shoulder.

Like her appearance,
the action was new,
strange,
striking
to Gale;
but it brought home suddenly
to him the nature of gratitude and affection in a girl of her blood.

It was sweet and sisterly.

He knew then that he had not fallen in love
with her.

The feeling that was akin
to jealousy seemed
to be of the beautiful something
for which Mercedes stood in Thorne's life.

Gale then grasped the bewildering possibilities,
the infinite wonder of what a girl could mean
to a man.

The other haunting intimations of change seemed
to be elusively blended
with sensations--the heat and thrill of action,
the sense of something done and more
to do,
the utter vanishing of an old weary hunt
for he knew not what.

Maybe it had been a hunt
for work,
for energy,
for spirit,
for love,
for his real self.

Whatever it might be,
there appeared
to be now some hope of finding it.

The desert began
to lighten.

Gray openings in the border of shrubby growths changed
to paler hue.

The road could be seen some rods ahead,
and it had become a stony descent down,
steadily down.

Dark,
ridged backs of mountains bounded the horizon,
and all seemed near at hand,
hemming in the plain.

In the east a white glow grew brighter and brighter,
reaching up
to a line of cloud,
defined sharply below by a rugged notched range.

Presently a silver circle rose behind the black mountain,
and the gloom of the desert underwent a transformation.

From a gray mantle it changed
to a transparent haze.

The moon was rising.

"Senor I am cold,"
said Mercedes.

Dick had been carrying his coat upon his arm.

He had felt warm,
even hot,
and had imagined that the steady walk had occasioned it.

But his skin was cool.

The heat came from an inward burning.

He stopped the horse and raised the coat up,
and helped Mercedes put it on.

"I should have thought of you,"
he said.

"But I seemed
to feel warm .

.

.

The coat's a little large;
we might wrap it round you twice."

Mercedes smiled and lightly thanked him in Spanish.

The flash of mood was in direct contrast
to the appealing,
passionate,
and tragic states in which he had successively viewed her;
and it gave him a vivid impression of what vivacity and charm she might possess under happy conditions.

He was about
to start when he observed that Ladd had halted and was peering ahead in evident caution.

Mercedes'
horse began
to stamp impatiently,
raised his hears and head,
and acted as if he was about
to neigh.

A warning
"hist!"
from Ladd bade Dick
to put a quieting hand on the horse.

Lash came noiselessly forward
to join his companion.

The two then listened and watched.

An uneasy yet thrilling stir ran through Gale's veins.

This scene was not fancy.

These men of the ranges had heard or seen or scented danger.

It was all real,
as tangible and sure as the touch of Mercedes's hand upon his arm.

Probably
for her the night had terrors beyond Gale's power
to comprehend.

He looked down into the desert,
and would have felt no surprise at anything hidden away among the bristling cactus,
the dark,
winding arroyos,
the shadowed rocks
with their moonlit tips,
the ragged plain leading
to the black bold mountains.

The wind appeared
to blow softly,
with an almost imperceptible moan,
over the desert.

That was a new sound
to Gale.

But he heard nothing more.

Presently Lash went
to the rear and Ladd started ahead.

The progress now,
however,
was considerably slower,
not owing
to a road--for that became better--but probably owing
to caution exercised by the cowboy guide.

At the end of a half hour this marked deliberation changed,
and the horses followed Ladd's at a gait that put Gale
to his best walking-paces.

Meanwhile the moon soared high above the black corrugated peaks.

The gray,
the gloom,
the shadow whitened.

The clearing of the dark foreground appeared
to lift a distant veil and show endless aisles of desert reaching down between dim horizon-bounding ranges.

Gale gazed abroad,
knowing that as this night was the first time
for him
to awake
to consciousness of a vague,
wonderful other self,
so it was one wherein he began
to be aware of an encroaching presence of physical things--the immensity of the star-studded sky,
the soaring moon,
the bleak,
mysterious mountains,
and limitless slope,
and plain,
and ridge,
and valley.

These things in all their magnificence had not been unnoticed by him before;
only now they spoke a different meaning.

A voice that he had never heard called him
to see,
to fee the vast hard externals of heaven and earth,
all that represented the open,
the free,
silence and solitude and space.

Once more his thoughts,
like his steps,
were halted by Ladd's actions.

The cowboy reined in his horse,
listened a moment,
then swung down out of the saddle.

He raised a cautioning hand
to the others,
then slipped into the gloom and disappeared.

Gale marked that the halt had been made in a ridged and cut-up pass between low mesas.

He could see the columns of cactus standing out black against the moon-white sky.

The horses were evidently tiring,
for the showed no impatience.

Gale heard their panting breaths,
and also the bark of some animal--a dog or a coyote.

It sounded like a dog,
and this led Gale
to wonder if there was any house near at hand.

To the right,
up under the ledges some distance away,
stood two square black objects,
too uniform,
he thought,
to be rocks.

While he was peering at them,
uncertain what
to think,
the shrill whistle of a horse pealed out,
to be followed by the rattling of hoofs on hard stone.

Then a dog barked.

At the same moment that Ladd hurriedly appeared in the road a light shone out and danced before one of the square black objects.

"Keep close an'
don't make no noise,"
he whispered,
and led his horse at right angles off the road.

Gale followed,
leading Mercedes's horse.

As he turned he observed that Lash also had dismounted.

To keep closely at Ladd's heels without brushing the cactus or stumbling over rocks and depressions was a task Gale found impossible.

After he had been stabbed several times by the bayonetlike spikes,
which seemed invisible,
the matter of caution became equally one of self-preservation.

Both the cowboys,
Dick had observed,
wore leather chaps.

It was no easy matter
to lead a spirited horse through the dark,
winding lanes walled by thorns.

Mercedes horse often balked and had
to be coaxed and carefully guided.

Dick concluded that Ladd was making a wide detour.

The position of certain stars grown familiar during the march veered round from one side
to another.

Dick saw that the travel was fast,
but by no means noiseless.

The pack animals at times crashed and ripped through the narrow places.

It seemed
to Gale that any one within a mile could have heard these sounds.

From the tops of knolls or ridges he looked back,
trying
to locate the mesas where the light had danced and the dog had barked alarm.

He could not distinguish these two rocky eminences from among many rising in the background.

Presently Ladd let out into a wider lane that appeared
to run straight.

The cowboy mounted his horse,
and this fact convinced Gale that they had circled back
to the road.

The march proceeded then once more at a good,
steady,
silent walk.

When Dick consulted his watch he was amazed
to see that the hour was till early.

How much had happened in little time! He now began
to be aware that the night was growing colder;
and,
strange
to him,
he felt something damp that in a country he knew he would have recognized as dew.

He had not been aware there was dew on the desert.

The wind blew stronger,
the stars shone whiter,
the sky grew darker,
and the moon climbed toward the zenith.

The road stretched level
for miles,
then crossed arroyos and ridges,
wound between mounds of broken ruined rock,
found a level again,
and then began a long ascent.

Dick asked Mercedes if she was cold,
and she answered that she was,
speaking especially of her feet,
which were growing numb.

Then she asked
to be helped down
to walk awhile.

At first she was cold and lame,
and accepted the helping hand Dick proffered.

After a little,
however,
she recovered and went on without assistance.

Dick could scarcely believe his eyes,
as from time
to time he stole a sidelong glance at this silent girl,
who walked
with lithe and rapid stride.

She was wrapped in his long coat,
yet it did not hide her slender grace.

He could not see her face,
which was concealed by the black mantle.

A low-spoken word from Ladd recalled Gale
to the question of surroundings and of possible dangers.

Ladd had halted a few yards ahead.

They had reached the summit of what was evidently a high ridge which sloped
with much greater steepness on the far side.

It was only after a few more forward steps,
however,
that Dick could see down the slope.

Then full in view flashed a bright campfire around which clustered a group of dark figures.

They were encamped in a wide arroyo,
where horses could be seen grazing in black patches of grass between clusters of trees.

A second look at the campers told Gale they were Mexicans.

At this moment Lash came forward
to join Ladd,
and the two spend a long,
uninterrupted moment studying the arroyo.

A hoarse laugh,
faint yet distinct,
floated up on the cool wind.

"Well,
Laddy,
what're you makin'
of that outfit?"
inquired Lash,
speaking softly.

"Same as any of them raider outfits,"
replied Ladd.

"They're across the line
for beef.

But they'll run off any good stock.

As hoss thieves these rebels have got
'em all beat.

That outfit is waitin'
till it's late.

There's a ranch up the arroyo."

Gale heard the first speaker curse under his breath.

"Shore,
I feel the same,"
said Ladd.

"But we've got a girl an'
the young man
to look after,
not
to mention our pack outfit.

An'
we're huntin'
for a job,
not a fight,
old hoss.

Keep on your chaps!"
"Nothin'
to it but head south
for the Rio Forlorn."

"You're talkin'
sense now,
Jim.

I wish we'd headed that way long ago.

But it ain't strange I'd want
to travel away from the border,
thinkin'
of the girl.

Jim,
we can't go round this Greaser outfit an'
strike the road again.

Too rough.

So we'll have
to give up gettin'
to San Felipe."

"Perhaps it's just as well,
Laddy.

Rio Forlorn is on the border line,
but it's country where these rebels ain't been yet."

"Wait till they learn of the oasis an'
Beldin's hosses!"
exclaimed Laddy.

"I'm not anticipatin'
peace anywhere along the border,
Jim.

but we can't go ahead;
we can't go back."

"What'll we do,
Laddy"
It's a hike
to Beldin's ranch.

An'
if we get there in daylight some Greaser will see the girl before Beldin'
can hide her.

It'll get talked about.

The news'll travel
to Casita like sage balls before the wind."

"Shore we won't ride into Rio Forlorn in the daytime.

Let's slip the packs,
Jim.

We can hid them off in the cactus an'
come back after them.

With the young man ridin'
we--"
The whispering was interrupted by a loud ringing neigh that whistled up from the arroyo.

One of the horses had scented the travelers on the ridge top.

The indifference of the Mexicans changed
to attention.

Ladd and Lash turned back and led the horses into the first opening on the south side of the road.

There was nothing more said at the moment,
and manifestly the cowboys were in a hurry.

Gale had
to run in the open places
to keep up.

When they did stop it was welcome
to Gale,
for he had begun
to fall behind.

The packs were slipped,
securely tied and hidden in a mesquite clump.

Ladd strapped a blanket around one of the horses.

His next move was
to take off his chaps.

"Gale,
you're wearin'
boots,
an'
by liftin'
your feet you can beat the cactus,"
he whispered.

"But the--the--Miss Castaneda,
she'll be torn all
to pieces unless she puts these on.

Please tell her--an'
hurry."

Dick took the caps,
and,
going up
to Mercedes,
he explained the situation.

She laughed,
evidently at his embarrassed earnestness,
and slipped out of the saddle.

"Senor,
chapparejos and I are not strangers,"
she said.

Deftly and promptly she equipped herself,
and then Gale helped her into the saddle,
called
to her horse,
and started off.

Lash directed Gale
to mount the other saddled horse and go next.

Dick had not ridden a hundred yards behind the trotting leaders before he had sundry painful encounters
with reaching cactus arms.

The horse missed these by a narrow margin.

Dick's knees appeared
to be in line,
and it be came necessary
for him
to lift them high and let his boots take the onslaught of the spikes.

He was at home in the saddle,
and the accomplishment was about the only one he possessed that had been of any advantage during his sojourn in the West.

Ladd pursued a zigzag course southward across the desert,
trotting down the aisles,
cantering in wide,
bare patches,
walking through the clumps of cacti.

The desert seemed all of a sameness
to Dick--a wilderness of rocks and jagged growths hemmed in by lowering ranges,
always looking close,
yet never growing any nearer.

The moon slanted back toward the west,
losing its white radiance,
and the gloom of the earlier evening began
to creep into the washes and
to darken under the mesas.

By and by Ladd entered an arroyo,
and here the travelers turned and twisted
with the meanderings of a dry stream bed.

At the head of a canyon they had
to take once more
to the rougher ground.

Always it led down,
always it grew rougher,
more rolling,
with wider bare spaces,
always the black ranges loomed close.

Gale became chilled
to the bone,
and his clothes were damp and cold.

His knees smarted from the wounds of the poisoned thorns,
and his right hand was either swollen stiff or too numb
to move.

Moreover,
he was tiring.

The excitement,
the long walk,
the miles on miles of jolting trot--these had wearied him.

Mercedes must be made of steel,
he thought,
to stand all that she had been subjected
to and yet,
when the stars were paling and dawn perhaps not far away,
stay in the saddle.

So Dick Gale rode on,
drowsier
for each mile,
and more and more giving the horse a choice of ground.

Sometimes a prod from a murderous spine roused Dick.

A grayness had blotted out the waning moon in the west and the clear,
dark,
starry sky overhead.

Once when Gale,
thinking
to fight his weariness,
raised his head,
he saw that one of the horses in the lead was riderless.

Ladd was carrying Mercedes.

Dick marveled that her collapse had not come sooner.

Another time,
rousing himself again,
he imagined they were now on a good hard road.

It seemed that hours passed,
though he knew only little time had elapsed,
when once more he threw off the spell of weariness.

He heard a dog bark.

Tall trees lined the open lane down which he was riding.

Presently in the gray gloom he saw low,
square houses
with flat roofs.

Ladd turned off
to the left down another lane,
gloomy between trees.

Every few rods there was one of the squat houses.

This lane opened into wider,
lighter space.

The cold air bore a sweet perfume--whether of flowers or fruit Dick could not tell.

Ladd rode on
for perhaps a quarter of a mile,
though it seemed interminably long
to Dick.

A grove of trees loomed dark in the gray morning.

Ladd entered it and was lost in the shade.

Dick rode on among trees.

Presently he heard voices,
and soon another house,
low and flat like the others,
but so long he could not see the farther end,
stood up blacker than the trees.

As he dismounted,
cramped and sore,
he could scarcely stand.

Lash came alongside.

He spoke,
and some one
with a big,
hearty voice replied
to him.

Then it seemed
to Dick that he was led into blackness like pitch,
where,
presently,
he felt blankets thrown on him and then his drowsy faculties faded.

IV Forlorn River When Dick opened his eyes a flood of golden sunshine streamed in at the open window under which he lay.

His first thought was one of blank wonder as
to where in the world he happened
to be.

The room was large,
square,
adobe-walled.

It was littered
with saddles,
harness,
blankets.

Upon the floor was a bed spread out upon a tarpaulin.

Probably this was where some one had slept.

The sight of huge dusty spurs,
a gun belt
with sheath and gun,
and a pair of leather chaps bristling
with broken cactus thorns recalled
to Dick the cowboys,
the ride,
Mercedes,
and the whole strange adventure that had brought him there.

He did not recollect having removed his boots;
indeed,
upon second thought,
he knew he had not done so.

But there they stood upon the floor.

Ladd and Lash must have taken them off when he was so exhausted and sleepy that he could not tell what was happening.

He felt a dead weight of complete lassitude,
and he did not want
to move.

A sudden pain in his hand caused him
to hold it up.

It was black and blue,
swollen
to almost twice its normal size,
and stiff as a board.

The knuckles were skinned and crusted
with dry blood.

Dick soliloquized that it was the worst-looking hand he had seen since football days,
and that it would inconvenience him
for some time.

A warm,
dry,
fragrant breeze came through the window.

Dick caught again the sweet smell of flowers or fruit.

He heard the fluttering of leaves,
the murmur of running water,
the twittering of birds,
then the sound of approaching footsteps and voices.

The door at the far end of the room was open.

Through it he saw poles of peeled wood upholding a porch roof,
a bench,
rose bushes in bloom,
grass,
and beyond these bright-green foliage of trees.

"He shore was sleepin'
when I looked in an hour ago,"
said a voice that Kick recognized as Ladd's.

"Let him sleep,"
came the reply in deep,
good-natured tones.

"Mrs.

b.

says the girl's never moved.

Must have been a tough ride
for them both.

Forty miles through cactus!"
"Young Gale hoofed darn near half the way,"
replied Ladd.

"We tried
to make him ride one of our hosses.

If we had,
we'd never got here.

A walk like that'd killed me an'
Jim."

"Well,
Laddy,
I'm right down glad
to see you boys,
and I'll do all I can
for the young couple,"
said the other.

"But I'm doing some worry here;
don't mistake me."

"About your stock?"
"I've got only a few head of cattle at the oasis now,
I'm worrying some,
mostly about my horses.

The U.

S.

is doing some worrying,
too,
don't mistake me.

The rebel have worked west and north as far as Casita.

There are no cavalrymen along the line beyond Casita,
and there can't be.

It's practically waterless desert.

But these rebels are desert men.

They could cross the line beyond the Rio Forlorn and smuggle arms into Mexico.

Of course,
my job is
to keep tab on Chinese and Japs trying
to get into the U.S.

from Magdalena Bay.

But I'm supposed
to patrol the border line.

I'm going
to hire some rangers.

Now,
I'm not so afraid of being shot up,
though out in this lonely place there's danger of it;
what I'm afraid of most is losing that bunch of horses.

If any rebels come this far,
or if they ever hear of my horses,
they're going
to raid me.

You know what those guerrilla Mexicans will do
for horses.

They're crazy on horse flesh.

They know fine horses.

They breed the finest in the world.

So I don't sleep nights any more."

"Reckon me an'
Jim might as well tie up
with your
for a spell,
Beldin'.

We've been ridin'
up an'
down Arizona tryin'
to keep out of sight of wire fences."

"Laddy,
it's open enough around Forlorn River
to satisfy even an old-time cowpuncher like you,"
laughed Belding.

"I'd take your staying on as some favor,
don't mistake me.

Perhaps I can persuade the young man Gale
to take a job
with me."

"That's shore likely.

He said he had no money,
no friends.

An'
if a scrapper's all you're lookin'
for he'll do,"
replied Ladd,
with a dry chuckle.

"Mrs.

B.

will throw some broncho capers round this ranch when she hears I'm going
to hire a stranger."

"Why?"
"Well,
there's Nell-- And you said this Gale was a young American.

My wife will be scared
to death
for fear Nell will fall in love
with him."

Laddy choked off a laugh,
then evidently slapped his knee or Belding's,
for there was a resounding smack.

"He's a fine-spoken,
good-looking chap,
you said?"
went on Belding.

"Shore he is,"
said Laddy,
warmly.

"What do you say,
Jim?"
By this time Dick Gale's ears began
to burn and he was trying
to make himself deaf when he wanted
to hear every little word.

"Husky young fellow,
nice voice,
steady,
clear eyes,
kinda proud,
I thought,
an'
some handsome,
he was,"
replied Jim Lash.

"Maybe I ought
to think twice before taking a stranger into my family,"
said Belding,
seriously.

"Well,
I guess he's all right,
Laddy,
being the cavalryman's friend.

No bum or lunger?

He must be all right?"
"Bum?

Lunger?

Say,
didn't I tell you I shook hands
with this boy an'
was plumb glad
to meet him?"
demanded Laddy,
with considerable heat.

Manifestly he had been affronted.

"Tom Beldin',
he's a gentleman,
an'
he could lick you in-- in half a second.

How about that,
Jim?"
"Less time,"
replied Lash.

"Tom,
here's my stand.

Young Gale can have my hoss,
my gun,
anythin'
of mine."

"Aw,
I didn't mean
to insult you,
boys,
don't mistake me,"
said Belding.

"Course he's all right."

The object of this conversation lay quiet upon his bed,
thrilling and amazed at being so championed by the cowboys,
delighted
with Belding's idea of employing him,
and much amused
with the quaint seriousness of the three.

"How's the young man?"
called a woman's voice.

It was kind and mellow and earnest.

Gale heard footsteps on flagstones.

"He's asleep yet,
wife,"
replied Belding.

"Guess he was pretty much knocked out....I'll close the door there so we won't wake him."

There were slow,
soft steps,
then the door softly closed.

But the fact scarcely made a perceptible difference in the sound of the voices outside.

"Laddy and Jim are going
to stay,"
went on Belding.

"It'll be like the old Panhandle days a little.

I'm powerful glad
to have the boys,
Nellie.

You know I meant
to sent
to Casita
to ask them.

We'll see some trouble before the revolution is ended.

I think I'll make this young man Gale an offer."

"He isn't a cowboy?"
asked Mrs. Belding,
quickly.

"No."

"Shore he'd make a darn good one,"
put in Laddy.

"What is he?

Who is he?

Where did he come from?

Surely you must be--"
"Laddy swears he's all right,"
interrupted the husband.

"That's enough reference
for me.

Isn't it enough
for you?"
"Humph! Laddy knows a lot about young men,
now doesn't he,
especially strangers from the East?...Tom,
you must be careful!"
"Wife,
I'm only too glad
to have a nervy young chap come along.

What sense is there in your objection,
if Jim and Laddy stick up
for him?"
"But,
Tom--he'll fall in love
with Nell!"
protested Mrs. Belding.

"Well,
wouldn't that be regular?

Doesn't every man who comes along fall in love
with Nell?

Hasn't it always happened?

When she was a schoolgirl in Kansas didn't it happen?

Didn't she have a hundred moon-eyed ninnies after her in Texas?

I've had some peace out here in the desert,
except when a Greaser or a prospector or a Yaqui would come along.

Then same old story-- in love
with Nell!"
"But,
Tom,
Nell might fall in love
with this young man!"
exclaimed the wife,
in distress.

"Laddy,
Jim,
didn't I tell you?"
cried Belding.

"I knew she'd say that....My dear wife,
I would be simply overcome
with joy if Nell did fall in love once.

Real good and hard! She's wilder than any antelope out there on the desert.

Nell's nearly twenty now,
and so far as we know she's never cared a rap
for any fellow.

And she's just as gay and full of the devil as she was at fourteen.

Nell's as good and lovable as she is pretty,
but I'm afraid she'll never grow into a woman while we live out in this lonely land.

And you've always hated towns where there was a chance
for the girl--just because you were afraid she'd fall in love.

You've always been strange,
even silly,
about that.

I've done my best
for Nell--loved her as if she were my own daughter.

I've changed many business plans
to suit your whims.

There are rough times ahead,
maybe.

I need men.

I'll hire this chap Gale if he'll stay.

Let Nell take her chance
with him,
just as she'll have
to take chances
with men when we get out of the desert.

She'll be all the better
for it."

"I hope Laddy's not mistaken in his opinion of this newcomer,"
replied Mrs. Belding,
with a sigh of resignation.

"Shore I never made a mistake in my life figger'n'
people,"
said Laddy,
stoutly.

"Yes,
you have,
Laddy,"
replied Mrs. Belding.

"You're wrong about Tom....Well,
supper is
to be got.

That young man and the girl will be starved.

I'll go in now.

If Nell happens around don't--don't flatter her,
Laddy,
like you did at dinner.

Don't make her think of her looks."

Dick heard Mrs. Belding walk away.

"Shore she's powerful particular about that girl,"
observed Laddy.

"Say,
Tom,
Nell knows she's pretty,
doesn't she?"
"She's liable
to find it out unless you shut up,
Laddy.

When you visited us out here some weeks ago,
you kept paying cowboy compliments
to her."

"An'
it's your idea that cowboy compliments are plumb bad
for girls?"
"Downright bad,
Laddy,
so my wife says."

"I'll be darned if I believe any girl can be hurt by a little sweet talk.

It pleases
'em....But say,
Beldin',
speaking of looks,
have you got a peek yet at the Spanish girl?"
"Not in the light."

"Well,
neither have I in daytime.

I had enough by moonlight.

Nell is some on looks,
but I'm regretful passin'
the ribbon
to the lady from Mex.

Jim,
where are you?"
"My money's on Nell,"
replied Lash.

"Gimme a girl
with flesh an'
color,
an'
blue eyes a-laughin'.

Miss Castaneda is some peach,
I'll not gainsay.

But her face seemed too white.

An'
when she flashed those eyes on me,
I thought I was shot! When she stood up there at first,
thankin'
us,
I felt as if a--a princess was round somewhere.

Now,
Nell is kiddish an'
sweet an'--"
"Chop it,"
interrupted Belding.

"Here comes Nell now."

Dick's tingling hears took in the pattering of light footsteps,
the rush of some one running.

"Here you are,"
cried a sweet,
happy voice.

"Dad,
the Senorita is perfectly lovely.

I've been peeping at her.

She sleeps like--like death.

She's so white.

Oh,
I hope she won't be ill."

"Shore she's only played out,"
said Laddy.

"
But she had spunk while it lasted....I was just arguin'
with Jim an'
Tom about Miss Castaneda."

"Gracious! Why,
she's beautiful.

I never saw any one so beautiful....How strange and sad,
that about her! Tell me more,
Laddy.

You promised.

I'm dying
to know.

I never hear anything in this awful place.

Didn't you say the Senorita had a sweetheart?"
"Shore I did."

"And he's a cavalryman?"
"Yes."

"Is he the young man who came
with you?"
"Nope.

That fellow's the one who saved the girl from Rojas."

"Ah! Where is he,
Laddy?"
"He's in there asleep."

"Is he hurt?"
"I reckon not.

He walked about fifteen miles."

"Is he--nice,
Laddy?"
"Shore."

"What is he like?"
"Well,
I'm not long acquainted,
never say him by day,
but I was some tolerable took
with him.

An'
Jim here,
Jim says the young man can have his gun an'
his hoss."

"Wonderful! Laddy,
what on earth did this stranger do
to win you cowboys in just one night?"
"I'll shore have
to tell you.

Me an'
Jim were watchin'
a game of cards in the Del Sol saloon in Casita.

That's across the line.

We had acquaintances--four fellows from the Cross Bar outfit,
where we worked a while back.

This Del Sol is a billiard hall,
saloon,
restaurant,
an'
the like.

An'
it was full of Greasers.

Some of Camp's rebels were there drinkin'
an'
playin'
games.

Then pretty soon in come Rojas
with some of his outfit.

They were packin'
guns an'
kept
to themselves off
to one side.

I didn't give them a second look till Jim said he reckoned there was somethin'
in the wind.

Then,
careless-like,
I began
to peek at Rojas.

They call Rojas the
'dandy rebel,'
an'
he shore looked the part.

It made me sick
to see him in all that lace an'
glitter,
knowin'
him
to be the cutthroat robber he is.

It's no oncommon sight
to see excited Greasers.

They're all crazy.

But this bandit was shore some agitated.

He kept his men in a tight bunch round a table.

He talked an'
waved his hands.

He was actually shakin'.

His eyes had a wild glare.

Now I figgered that trouble was brewin',
most likely
for the little Casita garrison.

People seemed
to think Campo an'
Rojas would join forces
to oust the federals.

Jim thought Rojas's excitement was at the hatchin'
of some plot.

Anyway,
we didn't join no card games,
an'
without pretendin'
to,
we was some watchful.

"A little while afterward I seen a fellow standin'
in the restaurant door.

He was a young American dressed in corduroys and boots,
like a prospector.

You know it's no onusual fact
to see prospectors in these parts.

What made me think twice about this one was how big he seemed,
how he filled up that door.

He looked round the saloon,
an'
when he spotted Rojas he sorta jerked up.

Then he pulled his slouch hat lopsided an'
began
to stagger down,
down the steps.

First off I mad shore he was drunk.

But I remembered he didn't seem drunk before.

It was some queer.

So I watched that young man.

"He reeled around the room like a fellow who was drunker'n a lord.

Nobody but me seemed
to notice him.

Then he began
to stumble over pool-players an'
get his fact tangled up in chairs an'
bump against tables.

He got some pretty hard looks.

He came round our way,
an'
all of a sudden he seen us cowboys.

He gave another start,
like the one when he first seen Rojas,
then he made
for us.

I tipped Jim off that somethin'
was doin'.

"When he got close he straightened up,
put back his slouch hat,
an'
looked at us.

Then I saw his face.

It sorta electrified yours truly.

It was white,
with veins standin'
out an'
eyes flamin'--a face of fury.

I was plumb amazed,
didn't know what
to think.

Then this queer young man shot some cool,
polite words at me an'
Jim.

"He was only bluffin'
at bein'
drunk--he meant
to rush Rojas,
to start a rough house.

Then bandit was after a girl.

This girl was in the hotel,
an'
she was the sweetheart of a soldier,
the young fellow's friend.

The hotel was watched by Rojas's guards,
an'
the plan was
to make a fuss an'
get the girl away in the excitement.

Well,
Jim an'
me got a hint of our bein'
Americans--that cowboys generally had a name
for loyalty
to women.

Then this amazin'
chap--you can't imagine how scornful--said
for me an'
Jim
to watch him.

"Before I could catch my breath an'
figger out what he meant by
'rush'
an'
'rough house'
he had knocked over a table an'
crowded some Greaser half off the map.

One little funny man leaped up like a wild monkey an'
began
to screech.

An'
in another second he was in the air upside down.

When he lit,
he laid there.

Then,
quicker'n I can tell you,
the young man dove at Rojas.

Like a mad steer on the rampage he charged Rojas an'
his men.

The whole outfit went down--smash! I figgered then what
'rush'
meant.

The young fellow came up out of the pile
with Rojas,
an'
just like I'd sling an empty sack along the floor he sent the bandit.

But swift as that went he was on top of Rojas before the chairs an'
tables had stopped rollin'.

"I woke up then,
an'
made
for the center of the room.

Jim
with me.

I began
to shoot out the lamps.

Jim throwed his guns on the crazy rebels,
an'
I was afraid there'd be blood spilled before I could get the room dark.

Bein's shore busy,
I lost sight of the young fellow
for a second or so,
an'
when I got an eye free
for him I seen a Greaser about
to knife him.

Think I was some considerate of the Greaser by only shootin'
his arm off.

Then I cracked the last lamp,
an'
in the hullabaloo me an'
Jim vamoosed.

"We made tracks
for our hosses an'
packs,
an'
was hittin'
the San Felipe road when we run right plumb into the young man.

Well,
he said his name was Gale--Dick Gale.

The girl was
with him safe an'
well;
but her sweetheart,
the soldier,
bein'
away without leave,
had
to go back sudden.

There shore was some trouble,
for Jim an'
me heard shootin'.

Gale said he had no money,
no friends,
was a stranger in a desert country;
an'
he was distracted
to know how
to help the girl.

So me an'
Jim started off
with them
for San Felipe,
got switched,
and'
then we headed
for the Rio Forlorn."

"Oh,
I think he was perfectly splendid!"
exclaimed the girl.

"Shore he was.

Only,
Nell,
you can't lay no claim
to bein'
the original discoverer of that fact."

"But,
Laddy,
you haven't told me what he looks like."

At this juncture Dick Gale felt is absolutely impossible
for him
to play the eavesdropper any longer.

Quietly he rolled out of bed.

The voices still sounded close outside,
and it was only by effort that he kept from further listening.

Belding's kindly interest,
Laddy's blunt and sincere cowboy eulogy,
the girl's sweet eagerness and praise--these warmed Gale's heart.

He had fallen among simple people,
into whose lives the advent of an unknown man was welcome.

He found himself in a singularly agitated mood.

The excitement,
the thrill,
the difference felt in himself,
experienced the preceding night,
had extended on into his present.

And the possibilities suggested by the conversation he had unwittingly overheard added sufficiently
to the other feelings
to put him into a peculiarly receptive state of mind.

He was wild
to be one of the Beldings rangers.

The idea of riding a horse in the open desert,
with a dangerous duty
to perform,
seemed
to strike him
with an appealing force.

Something within him went out
to the cowboys,
to this blunt and kind Belding.

He was afraid
to meet the girl.

If every man who came along fell in love
with this sweet-voiced Nell,
then what hope had he
to escape--now,
when his whole inner awakening betokened a change of spirit,
hope,
a finding of real worth,
real good,
real power in himself?

He did not understand wholly,
yet he felt ready
to ride,
to fight,
to love the desert,
to love these outdoor men,
to love a woman.

That beautiful Spanish girl had spoken
to something dead in him and it had quickened
to life.

The sweet voice of an audacious,
unseen girl warned him that presently a still more wonderful thing would happen
to him.

Gale imagined he made noise enough as he clumsily pulled on his boots,
yet the voices,
split by a merry laugh,
kept on murmuring outside the door.

It was awkward
for him,
having only one hand available
to lace up his boots.

He looked out of the window.

Evidently this was at the end of the house.

There was a flagstone walk,
beside which ran a ditch full of swift,
muddy water.

It made a pleasant sound.

There were trees strange of form and color
to to him.

He heard bees,
birds,
chickens,
saw the red of roses and green of grass.

Then he saw,
close
to the wall,
a tub full of water,
and a bench upon which lay basin,
soap,
towel,
comb,
and brush.

The window was also a door,
for under it there was a step.

Gale hesitated a moment,
then went out.

He stepped naturally,
hoping and expecting that the cowboys would hear him.

But nobody came.

Awkwardly,
with left hand,
he washed his face.

Upon a nail in the wall hung a little mirror,
by the aid of which Dick combed and brushed his hair.

He imagined he looked a most haggard wretch.

With that he faced forward,
meaning
to go round the corner of the house
to greet the cowboys and these new-found friends.

Dick had taken but one step when he was halted by laugher and the patter of light feet.

From close around the corner pealed out that sweet voice.

"Dad,
you'll have your wish,
and mama will be wild!"
Dick was a little foot sweep into view,
a white dress,
then the swiftly moving form of a girl.

She was looking backward.

"Dad,
I shall fall in love
with your new ranger.

I will--I have--"
Then she plumped squarely into Dick's arms.

She started back violently.

Dick saw a fair face and dark-blue,
audaciously flashing eyes.

Swift as lightning their expression changed
to surprise,
fear,
wonder.

for an instant they were level
with Dick's grave questioning.

Suddenly,
sweetly,
she blushed.

"Oh-h!"
she faltered.

Then the blush turned
to a scarlet fire.

She whirled past him,
and like a white gleam was gone.

Dick became conscious of the quickened beating of his heart.

He experienced a singular exhilaration.

That moment had been the one
for which he had been ripe,
the event upon which strange circumstances had been rushing him.

With a couple of strides he turned the corner.

Laddy and Lash were there talking
to a man of burly form.

Seen by day,
both cowboys were gray-haired,
red-skinned,
and weather-beaten,
with lean,
sharp features,
and gray eyes so much alike that they might have been brothers.

"Hello,
there's the young fellow,"
spoke up the burly man.

"Mr. Gale,
I'm glad
to meet you.

My name's Belding."

His greeting was as warm as his handclasp was long and hard.

Gale saw a heavy man of medium height.

His head was large and covered
with grizzled locks.

He wore a short-cropped mustache and chin beard.

His skin was brown,
and his dark eyes beamed
with a genial light.

The cowboys were as cordial as if Dick had been their friend
for years.

"Young man,
did you run into anything as you cam out?"
asked Belding,
with twinkling eyes.

"Why,
yes'
I met something white and swift flying by,"
replied Dick.

"Did she see you?"
asked Laddy.

"I think so;
but she didn't wait
for me
to introduce myself."

"That was Nell Burton,
my girl--step-daughter,
I should say,"
said Belding.

"She's sure some whirlwind,
as Laddy calls her.

Come,
let's go in and meet the wife."

The house was long,
like a barracks,
with porch extending all the way,
and doors every dozen paces.

When Dick was ushered into a sitting-room,
he was amazed at the light and comfort.

This room had two big windows and a door opening into a patio,
where there were luxuriant grass,
roses in bloom,
and flowering trees.

He heard a slow splashing of water.

In Mrs. Belding,
Gale found a woman of noble proportions and striking appearance.

Her hair was white.

She had a strong,
serious,
well-lined face that bore haunting evidences of past beauty.

The gaze she bent upon him was almost piercing in its intensity.

Her greeting,
which seemed
to Dick rather slow in coming,
was kind though not cordial.

Gale's first thought,
after he had thanked these good people
for their hospitality,
was
to inquire about Mercedes.

He was informed that the Spanish girl had awakened
with a considerable fever and nervousness.

When,
however,
her anxiety had been allayed and her thirst relieved,
she had fallen asleep again.

Mrs.Belding said the girl had suffered no great hardship,
other than mental,
and would very soon be rested and well.

"Now,
Gale,"
said Belding,
when his wife had excused herself
to get supper,
"the boys,
Jim and Laddy,
told me about you and the mix-up at Casita.

I'll be glad
to take care of the girl till it's safe
for your soldier friend
to get her out of the country.

That won't be very soon,
don't mistake me....I don't want
to seem over-curious about you--Laddy has interested me in you--and straight out I'd like
to know what you propose
to do now."

"I haven't any plans,"
replied Dick;
and,
taking the moment as propitious,
he decided
to speak frankly concerning himself.

"I just drifted down here.

My home is in Chicago.

When I left school some years ago--I'm twenty-five now--I went
to work
for my father.

He's--he has business interests there.

I tried all kinds of inside jobs.

I couldn't please my father.

I guess I put no real heart in my work.

the fact was I didn't know how
to work.

The governor and I didn't exactly quarrel;
but he hurt my feelings,
and I quit.

Six months or more ago I came West,
and have knocked about from Wyoming southwest
to the border.

I tried
to find congenial work,
but nothing came my way.

To tell you frankly,
Mr. Belding,
I suppose I didn't much care.

I believe,
though,
that all the time I didn't know what I wanted.

I've learned--well,
just lately--"
"What do you want
to do?"
interposed Belding.

"I want a man's job.

I want
to do things
with my hands.

I want action.

I want
to be outdoors."

Belding nodded his head as if he understood that,
and he began
to speak again,
cut something short,
then went on,
hesitatingly:

"Gale--you could go home again--to the old man-- it'd be all right?"
"Mr. Belding,
there's nothing shady in my past.

The governor would be glad
to have me home.

That's the only consolation I've got.

But I'm not going.

I'm broke.

I won't be a tramp.

And it's up
to me
to do something."

"How'd you like
to be a border ranger?"
asked Belding,
laying a hand on Dick's knee.

"Part of my job here is United States Inspector of Immigration.

I've got that boundary line
to patrol--to keep out Chinks and Japs.

This revolution has added complications,
and I'm looking
for smugglers and raiders here any day.

You'll not be hired by the U.

S.

You'll simply be my ranger,
same as Laddy and Jim,
who have promised
to work
for me.

I'll pay you well,
give you a room here,
furnish everything down
to guns,
and the finest horse you ever saw in your life.

Your job won't be safe and healthy,
sometimes,
but it'll be a man's job--don't mistake me! You can gamble on having things
to do outdoors.

Now,
what do you say?"
"I accpet,
and I thank you--I can't say how much,"
replied Gale,
earnestly.

"Good! That's settled.

Let's go out and tell Laddy and Jim."

Both boys expressed satisfaction at the turn of affairs,
and then
with Belding they set out
to take Gale around the ranch.

The house and several outbuildings were constructed of adobe,
which,
according
to Belding,
retained the summer heat on into winter,
and the winter cold on into summer.

These gray-red mud habitations were hideous
to look at,
and this fact,
perhaps,
made their really comfortable interiors more vividly a contrast.

The wide grounds were covered
with luxuriant grass and flowers and different kinds of trees.

Gale's interest led him
to ask about fig trees and pomegranates,
and especially about a beautiful specimen that Belding called palo verde.

Belding explained that the luxuriance of this desert place was owing
to a few springs and the dammed-up waters of the Rio Forlorn.

Before he had come
to the oasis it had been inhabited by a Papago Indian tribe and a few peon families.

The oasis lay in an arroyo a mile wide,
and sloped southwest
for some ten miles or more.

The river went dry most of the year;
but enough water was stored in flood season
to irrigate the gardens and alfalfa fields.

"I've got one never-failing spring on my place,"
said Belding.

"Fine,
sweet water! You know what that means in the desert.

I like this oasis.

The longer I live here the better I like it.

There's not a spot in southern Arizona that'll compare
with this valley
for water or grass or wood.

It's beautiful and healthy.

Forlorn and lonely,
yes,
especially
for women like my wife and Nell;
but I like it....And between you and me,
boys,
I've got something up my sleeve.

There's gold dust in the arroyos,
and there's mineral up in the mountains.

If we only had water! This hamlet has steadily grown since I took up a station here.

Why,
Casita is no place beside Forlorn River.

Pretty soon the Southern Pacific will shoot a railroad branch out here.

There are possibilities,
and I want you boys
to stay
with me and get in on the ground floor.

I wish this rebel war was over....Well,
here are the corrals and the fields.

Gale,
take a look at that bunch of horses!"
Belding's last remark was made as he led his companions out of shady gardens into the open.

Gale saw an adobe shed and a huge pen fenced by strangely twisted and contorted branches or trunks of mesquite,
and,
beyond these,
wide,
flat fields,
green--a dark,
rich green--and dotted
with beautiful horses.

There were whites and blacks,
and bays and grays.

In his admiration Gale searched his memory
to see if he could remember the like of these magnificent animals,
and had
to admit that the only ones he could compare
with them were the Arabian steeds.

"Every ranch loves his horses,"
said Belding.

"When I was in the Panhandle I had some fine stock.

But these are Mexican.

They came from Durango,
where they were bred.

Mexican horses are the finest in the world,
bar none."

"Shore I reckon I savvy why you don't sleep nights,"
drawled Laddy.

"I see a Greaser out there--no,
it's an Indian."

"That's my Papago herdsman.

I keep watch over the horses now day and night.

Lord,
how I'd hate
to have Rojas or Salazar--any of those bandit rebels--find my horses!...Gale,
can you ride?"
Dick modestly replied that he could,
according
to the Eastern idea of horsemanship.

"You don't need
to be half horse
to ride one of that bunch.

But over there in the other field I've iron-jawed broncos I wouldn't want you
to tackle--except
to see the fun.

I've an outlaw I'll gamble even Laddy can't ride."

"So.

How much'll you gamble?"
asked Laddy,
instantly.

The ringing of a bell,
which Belding said was a call
to supper,
turned the men back toward the house.

Facing that way,
Gale saw dark,
beetling ridges rising from the oasis and leading up
to bare,
black mountains.

He had heard Belding call them No Name Mountains,
and somehow the appellation suited those lofty,
mysterious,
frowning peaks.

It was not until they reached the house and were about
to go in that Belding chanced
to discover Gale's crippled hand.

"What an awful hand!"
he exclaimed.

"Where the devil did you get that?"
"I stove in my knuckles on Rojas,"
replied Dick.

"You did that in one punch?

Say,
I'm glad it wasn't me you hit! Why didn't you tell me?

That's a bad hand.

Those cuts are full of dirt and sand.

Inflammation's setting in.

It's got
to be dressed.

Nell!"
he called.

There was no answer.

He called again,
louder.

"Mother,
where's the girl?"
"She's there in the dining-room,"
replied Mrs. Belding.

"Did she hear me?"
he inquired,
impatiently.

"Of course."

"Nell!"
roared Belding.

This brought results.

Dick saw a glimpse of golden hair and a white dress in the door.

But they were not visible longer than a second.

"Dad,
what's the matter?"
asked a voice that was still as sweet as formerly,
but now rather small and constrained.

"Bring the antiseptics,
cotton,
bandages--and things out here.

Hurry now."

Belding fetched a pail of water and a basin from the kitchen.

His wife followed him out,
and,
upon seeing Dick's hand,
was all solicitude.

Then Dick heard light,
quick footsteps,
but he did not look up.

"Nell,
this is Mr. Gall--Dick Gale,
who came
with the boys last last night,"
said Belding.

"He's got an awful hand.

Got it punching that greaser Rojas.

I want you
to dress it....Gale,
this is my step-daughter,
Nell Burton,
of whom I spoke.

She's some good when there's somebody sick or hurt.

Shove out your fist,
my boy,
and let her get at it.

Supper's nearly ready."

Dick felt that same strange,
quickening heart throb,
yet he had never been cooler in his life.

More than anything else in the world he wanted
to look at Nell Burton;
however,
divining that the situation might be embarrassing
to her,
he refrained from looking up.

She began
to bathe his injured knuckles.

He noted the softness,
the deftness of her touch,
and then it seemed her fingers were not quite as steady as they might have been.

Still,
in a moment they appeared
to become surer in their work.

She had beautiful hands,
not too large,
though certainly not small,
and they were strong,
brown,
supple.

He observed next,
with stealthy,
upward-stealing glance,
that she had rolled up her sleeves,
exposing fine,
round arms graceful in line.

Her skin was brown--no,
it was more gold than brown.

It had a wonderful clear tint.

Dick stoically lowered his eyes then,
putting off as long as possible the alluring moment when he was
to look into her face.

That would be a fateful moment.

He played
with a certain strange joy of anticipation.

When,
however,
she sat down beside him and rested his injured hand in her lap as she cut bandages,
she was so thrillingly near that he yielded
to an irrepressible desire
to look up.

She had a sweet,
fair face warmly tinted
with that same healthy golden-brown sunburn.

Her hair was light gold and abundant,
a waving mass.

Her eyes were shaded by long,
downcast lashes,
yet through them he caught a gleam of blue.

Despite the stir within him,
Gale,
seeing she was now absorbed in her task,
critically studied her
with a second closer gaze.

She was a sweet,
wholesome,
joyous,
pretty girl.

"Shore it musta hurt?"
replied Laddy,
who sat an interested spectator.

"Yes,
I confess it did,"
replied Dick,
slowly,
with his eyes on Nell's face.

"But I didn't mind."

The girl's lashes swept up swiftly in surprise.

She had taken his words literally.

But the dark-blue eyes met his
for only a fleeting second.

Then the warm tint in her cheeks turned as red as her lips.

Hurriedly she finished tying the bandage and rose
to her feet.

"I thank you,"
said Gale,
also rising.

With that Belding appeared in the doorway,
and finding the operation concluded,
called them in
to supper.

Dick had the use of only one arm,
and he certainly was keenly aware of the shy,
silent girl across the table;
but in spite of these considerable handicaps he eclipsed both hungry cowboys in the assault upon Mrs. Belding's bounteous supper.

Belding talked,
the cowboys talked more or less.

Mrs.Belding put in a word now and then,
and Dick managed
to find brief intervals when it was possible
for him
to say yes or no.

He observed gratefully that no one round the table seemed
to be aware of his enormous appetite.

After supper,
having a favorable opportunity when
for a moment no one was at hand,
Dick went out through the yard,
past the gardens and fields,
and climbed the first knoll.

From that vantage point he looked out over the little hamlet,
somewhat
to his right,
and was surprised at its extent,
its considerable number of adobe houses.

The overhanging mountains,
ragged and darkening,
a great heave of splintered rock,
rather chilled and affronted him.

Westward the setting sun gilded a spiked,
frost-colored,
limitless expanse of desert.

It awed Gale.

Everywhere rose blunt,
broken ranges or isolated groups of mountains.

Yet the desert stretched away down between and beyond them.

When the sun set and Gale could not see so far,
he felt a relief.

That grand and austere attraction of distance gone,
he saw the desert nearer at hand--the valley at his feet.

What a strange gray,
somber place! There was a lighter strip of gray winding down between darker hues.

This he realized presently was the river bed,
and he saw how the pools of water narrowed and diminished in size till they lost themselves in gray sand.

This was the rainy season,
near its end,
and here a little river struggled hopelessly,
forlornly
to live in the desert.

He received a potent impression of the nature of that blasted age-worn waste which he had divined was
to give him strength and work and love.

V A Desert Rose Belding assigned Dick
to a little room which had no windows but two doors,
one opening into the patio,
the other into the yard on the west side of the house.

It contained only the barest necessities
for comfort.

Dick mentioned the baggage he had left in the hotel at Casita,
and it was Belding's opinion that
to try
to recover his property would be rather risky;
on the moment Richard Gale was probably not popular
with the Mexicans at Casita.

So Dick bade good-by
to fine suits of clothes and linen
with a feeling that,
as he had said farewell
to an idle and useless past,
it was just as well not
to have any old luxuries as reminders.

As he possessed,
however,
not a thing save the clothes on his back,
and not even a handkerchief,
he expressed regret that he had come
to Forlorn River a beggar.

"Beggar hell!"
exploded Belding,
with his eyes snapping in the lamplight.

"Money's the last thing we think of out here.

All the same,
Gale,
if you stick you'll be rich."

"It wouldn't surprise me,"
replied Dick,
thoughtfully.

But he was not thinking of material wealth.

Then,
as he viewed his stained and torn shirt,
he laughed and said
"Belding,
while I'm getting rich I'd like
to have some respectable clothes."

"We've a little Mex store in town,
and what you can't get there the women folks will make
for you."

When Dick lay down he was dully conscious of pain and headache,
that he did not feel well.

Despite this,
and a mind thronging
with memories and anticipations,
he succumbed
to weariness and soon fell asleep.

It was light when he awoke,
but a strange brightness seen through what seemed blurred eyes.

A moment passed before his mind worked clearly,
and then he had
to make an effort
to think.

He was dizzy.

When he essayed
to lift his right arm,
an excruciating pain made him desist.

Then he discovered that his arm was badly swollen,
and the hand had burst its bandages.

The injured member was red,
angry,
inflamed,
and twice its normal size.

He felt hot all over,
and a raging headache consumed him.

Belding came stamping into the room.

"Hello,
Dick.

Do you know it's late?

How's the busted fist this morning?"
Dick tried
to sit up,
but his effort was a failure.

He got about half up,
then felt himself weakly sliding back.

"I guess--I'm pretty sick,"
he said.

He saw Belding lean over him,
feel his face,
and speak,
and then everything seemed
to drift,
not into darkness,
but into some region where he had dim perceptions of gray moving things,
and of voices that were remote.

Then there came an interval when all was blank.

He knew not whether it was one of minutes or hours,
but after it he had a clearer mind.

He slept,
awakened during night-time,
and slept again.

When he again unclosed his eyes the room was sunny,
and cool
with a fragrant breeze that blew through the open door.

Dick felt better;
but he had no particular desire
to move or talk or eat.

He had,
however,
a burning thirst.

Mrs.Belding visited him often;
her husband came in several times,
and once Nell slipped in noiselessly.

Even this last event aroused no interest in Dick.

On the next day he was very much improved.

"We've been afraid of blood poisoning,"
said Belding.

"But my wife thinks the danger's past.

You'll have
to rest that arm
for a while."

Ladd and Jim came peeping in at the door.

"Come in,
boys.

He can have company--the more the better--if it'll keep him content.

He mustn't move,
that's all."

The cowboys entered,
slow,
easy,
cool,
kind-voiced.

"Shore it's tough,"
said Ladd,
after he had greeted Dick.

"You look used up."

Jim Lash wagged his half-bald,
sunburned head,
"Musta been more'n tough
for Rojas."

"Gale,
Laddy tells me one of our neighbors,
fellow named Carter,
is going
to Casita,"
put in Belding.

"Here's a chance
to get word
to your friend the soldier."

"Oh,
that will be fine!"
exclaimed Dick.

"I declare I'd forgotten Thorne....How is Miss Castaneda?

I hope--"
"She's all right,
Gale.

Been up and around the patio
for two days.

Like all the Spanish--the real thing--she's made of Damascus steel.

We've been getting acquainted.

She and Nell made friends at once.

I'll call them in."

He closed the door leading out into the yard,
explaining that he did not want
to take chances of Mercedes's presence becoming known
to neighbors.

Then he went
to the patio and called.

Both girls came in,
Mercedes leading.

Like Nell,
she wore white,
and she had a red rose in her hand.

Dick would scarcely have recognized anything about her except her eyes and the way she carried her little head,
and her beauty burst upon him strange and anew.

She was swift,
impulsive in her movements
to reach his side.

"Senor,
I am so sorry you were ill--so happy you are better."

Dick greeted her,
offering his left hand,
gravely apologizing
for the fact that,
owing
to a late infirmity,
he could not offer the right.

Her smile exquisitely combined sympathy,
gratitude,
admiration.

Then Dick spoke
to Nell,
likewise offering his hand,
which she took shyly.

Her reply was a murmured,
unintelligible one;
but her eyes were glad,
and the tine in her cheeks threatened
to rival the hue of the rose she carried.

Everybody chatted then,
except Nell,
who had apparently lost her voice.

Presently Dick remembered
to speak of the matter of getting news
to Thorne.

"Senor,
may I write
to him?

Will some one take a letter?...I shall hear from him!"
she said;
and her white hands emphasized her words.

"Assuredly.

I guess poor Thorne is almost crazy.

I'll write
to him....No,
I can't
with this crippled hand."

"That'll be all right,
Gale,"
said Belding.

"Nell will write
for you.

She writes all my letters."

So Belding arranged it;
and Mercedes flew away
to her room
to write,
while Nell fetched pen and paper and seated herself beside Gale's bed
to take his dictation.

What
with watching Nell and trying
to catch her glance,
and listening
to Belding's talk
with the cowboys,
Dick was hard put
to it
to dictate any kind of a creditable letter.

Nell met his gaze once,
then no more.

The color came and went in her cheeks,
and sometimes,
when he told her
to write so and so,
there was a demure smile on her lips.

She was laughing at him.

And Belding was talking over the risks involved in a trip
to Casita.

"Shore I'll ride in
with the letters,"
Ladd said.

"No you won't,"
replied Belding.

"That bandit outfit will be laying
for you."

"Well,
I reckon if they was I wouldn't be oncommon grieved."

"I'll tell you,
boys,
I'll ride in myself
with Carter.

There's business I can see to,
and I'm curious
to know what the rebels are doing.

Laddy,
keep one eye open while I'm gone.

See the horses are locked up....Gale,
I'm going
to Casita myself.

Ought
to get back tomorrow some time.

I'll be ready
to start in an hour.

Have your letter ready.

And say--if you want
to write home it's a chance.

Sometimes we don't go
to the P.

O.

in a month.

He tramped out,
followed by the tall cowboys,
and then Dick was enabled
to bring his letter
to a close.

Mercedes came back,
and her eyes were shining.

Dick imagined a letter received from her would be something of an event
for a fellow.

Then,
remembering Belding's suggestion,
he decided
to profit by it.

"May I trouble you
to write antoher
for me?"
asked Dick,
as he received the letter from Nell.

"It's no trouble,
I'm sure--I'd be pleased,"
she replied.

That was altogether a wonderful speech of hers,
Dick thought,
because the words were the first coherent ones she had spoken
to him.

"May I stay?"
asked Mercedes,
smiling.

"By all means,"
he answered,
and then he settled back and began.

Presently Gale paused,
partly because of genuine emotion,
and stole a look from under his hand at Nell.

She wrote swiftly,
and her downcast face seemed
to be softer in its expression of sweetness.

If she had in the very least been drawn
to him-- But that was absurd--impossible! When Dick finished dictating,
his eyes were upon Mercedes,
who sat smiling curious and sympathetic.

How responsive she was! He heard the hasty scratch of Nell's pen.

He looked at Nell.

Presently she rose,
holding out his letter.

He was just in time
to see a wave of red recede from her face.

She gave him one swift gaze,
unconscious,
searching,
then averted it and turned away.

She left the room
with Mercedes before he could express his thanks.

But that strange,
speaking flash of eyes remained
to haunt and torment Gale.

It was indescribably sweet,
and provocative of thoughts that he believed were wild without warrant.

Something within him danced
for very joy,
and the next instant he was conscious of wistful doubt,
a gravity that he could not understand.

It dawned upon him that
for the brief instant when Nell had met his gaze she had lost her shyness.

It was a woman's questioning eyes that had pierced through him.

During the rest of the day Gale was content
to lie still on his bed thinking and dreaming,
dozing at intervals,
and watching the lights change upon the mountain peaks,
feeling the warm,
fragrant desert wind that blew in upon him.

He seemed
to have lost the faculty of estimating time.

A long while,
strong in its effect upon him,
appeared
to have passed since he had met Thorne.

He accepted things as he felt them,
and repudiated his intelligence.

His old inquisitive habit of mind returned.

did he love Nell?

Was he only attracted
for the moment?

What was the use of worrying about her or himself?

He refused
to answer,
and deliberately gave himself up
to dreams of her sweet face and of that last dark-blue glance.

Next day he believed he was well enough
to leave his room;
but Mrs. Belding would not permit him
to do so.

She was kind,
soft-handed,
motherly,
and she was always coming in
to minister
to his comfort.

This attention was sincere,
not in the least forced;
yet Gale felt that the friendliness so manifest in the others of the household did not extend
to her.

He was conscious of something that a little thought persuaded him was antagonism.

It surprised and hurt him.

He had never been much of a success
with girls and young married women,
but their mothers and old people had generally been fond of him.

Still,
though Mrs. Belding's hair was snow-white,
she did not impress him as being old.

He reflected that there might come a time when it would be desirable,
far beyond any ground of every-day friendly kindliness,
to have Mrs. Belding be well disposed toward him.

So he thought about her,
and pondered how
to make her like him.

It did not take very long
for Dick
to discover that he liked her.

Her face,
except when she smiled,
was thoughtful and sad.

It was a face
to make one serious.

Like a haunting shadow,
like a phantom of happier years,
the sweetness of Nell's face was there,
and infinitely more of beauty than had been transmitted
to the daughter.

Dick believed Mrs. Belding's friendship and motherly love were worth striving
to win,
entirely aside from any more selfish motive.

He decided both would be hard
to get.

Often he felt her deep,
penetrating gaze upon him;
and,
though this in no wise embarrassed him--for he had no shameful secrets of past or present--it showed him how useless it would be
to try
to conceal anything from her.

Naturally,
on first impulse,
he wanted
to hide his interest in the daughter;
but he resolved
to be absolutely frank and true,
and through that win or lose.

Moreover,
if Mrs. Belding asked him any questions about his home,
his family,
his connections,
he would not avoid direct and truthful answers.

Toward evening Gale heard the tramp of horses and Belding's hearty voice.

Presently the rancher strode in upon Gale,
shaking the gray dust from his broad shoulders and waving a letter.

"Hello,
Dick! Good news and bad!"
he said,
putting the letter in Dick's hand.

"Had no trouble finding your friend Thorne.

Looked like he'd been drunk
for a week! Say,
he nearly threw a fit.

I never saw a fellow so wild
with joy.

He made sure you and Mercedes were lost in the desert.

He wrote two letters which I brought.

Don't mistake me,
boy,
it was some fun
with Mercedes just now.

I teased her,
wouldn't give her the letter.

You ought
to have seen her eyes.

If ever you see a black-and-white desert hawk swoop down upon a quail,
then you'll know how Mercedes pounced upon her letter...Well,
Casita is one hell of a place these days.

I tried
to get your baggage,
and I think I made a mistake.

We're going
to see travel toward Forlorn River.

The federal garrison got reinforcements from somewhere,
and is holding out.

There's been fighting
for three days.

The rebels have a string of flat railroad cars,
all iron,
and they ran this up within range of the barricades.

They've got some machine guns,
and they're going
to lick the federals sure.

There are dead soldiers in the ditches,
Mexican non-combatants lying dead in the streets--and buzzards everywhere! It's reported that Campo,
the rebel leader,
is on the way up from Sinaloa,
and Huerta,
a federal general,
is coming
to relieve the garrison.

I don't take much stock in reports.

But there's hell in Casita,
all right."

"Do you think we'll have trouble out here?"
asked Dick,
excitedly.

"Sure.

Some kind of trouble sooner or later,"
replied Belding,
gloomily.

"Why,
you can stand on my ranch and step over into Mexico.

Laddy says we'll lose horses and other stock in night raids.

Jim Lash doesn't look
for any worse.

But Jim isn't as well acquainted
with Greasers as I am.

Anyway,
my boy,
as soon as you can hold a bridle and a gun you'll be on the job,
don't mistake me."

"With Laddy and Jim?"
asked Dick,
trying
to be cool.

"Sure.

With them and me,
and by yourself."

Dick drew a deep breath,
and even after Belding had departed he forgot
for a moment about the letter in his hand.

Then he unfolded the paper and read:

Dear Dick,--You've more than saved my life.

To the end of my days you'll be the one man
to whom I owe everything.

Words fail
to express my feelings.

This must be a brief note.

Belding is waiting,
and I used up most of the time writing
to Mercedes.

I like Belding.

He was not unknown
to me,
though I never met or saw him before.

You'll be interested
to learn that he's the unadulterated article,
the real Western goods.

I've heard of some of his stunts,
and they made my hair curl.

Dick,
your luck is staggering.

The way Belding spoke of you was great.

But you deserve it,
old man.

I'm leaving Mercedes in your charge,
subject,
of course,
to advice from Belding.

Take care of her,
Dick,
for my life is wrapped up in her.

By all means keep her from being seen by Mexicans.

We are sitting tight here--nothing doing.

If some action doesn't come soon,
it'll be darned strange.

Things are centering this way.

There's scrapping right along,
and people have begun
to move.

We're still patrolling the line eastward of Casita.

It'll be impossible
to keep any tab on the line west of Casita,
for it's too rough.

That cactus desert is awful.

Cowboys or rangers
with desert-bred horses might keep raiders and smugglers from crossing.

But if cavalrymen could stand that waterless wilderness,
which I doubt much,
their horses would drop under them.

If things do quiet down before my commission expires,
I'll get leave of absence,
run out
to Forlorn River,
marry my beautiful Spanish princess,
and take her
to a civilized country,
where,
I opine,
every son of a gun who sees her will lose his head,
and drive me mad.

It's my great luck,
old pal,
that you are a fellow who never seemed
to care about pretty girls.

So you won't give me the double cross and run off
with Mercedes--carry her off,
like the villain in the play,
I mean.

That reminds me of Rojas.

Oh,
Dick,
it was glorious! You didn't do anything
to the Dandy Rebel! Not at all! You merely caressed him--gently moved him
to one side.

Dick,
harken
to these glad words:

Rojas is in the hospital.

I was interested
to inquire.

He had a smashed finger,
a dislocated collar bone,
three broken ribs,
and a fearful gash on his face.

He'll be in the hospital
for a month.

Dick,
when I meet that pig-headed dad of yours I'm going
to give him the surprise of his life.

Send me a line whenever any one comes in from F.

R.,
and inclose Mercedes's letter in yours.

Take care of her,
Dick,
and may the future hold in store
for you some of the sweetness I know now! Faithfully yours,
Thorne.

Dick reread the letter,
then folded it and placed it under his pillow.

"Never cared
for pretty girls,
huh?"
he soliloquized.

"George,
I never saw any till I struck Southern Arizona! Guess I'd better make up
for lost time."

While he was eating his supper,
with appetite rapidly returning
to normal,
Ladd and Jim cam in,
bowing their tall heads
to enter the door.

Their friendly advances were singularly welcome
to Gale,
but he was still backward.

He allowed himself
to show that he was glad
to see them,
and he listened.

Jim Lash had heard from Belding the result of the mauling given
to Rojas by Dick.

And Jim talked about what a grand thing that was.

Ladd had a good deal
to say about Belding's horses.

It took no keen judge of human nature
to see that horses constituted Ladd's ruling passion.

"I've had wimmen go back on me,
but never no hoss!"
declared Ladd,
and manifestly that was a controlling truth
with him.

"Shore it's a cinch Beldin'
is agoin'
to lose some of them hosses,"
he said.

"you can search me if I don't think there'll be more doin'
on the border here than along the Rio Grande.

We're just the same as on Greaser soil.

Mebbe we don't stand no such chance of bein'
shot up as we would across the line.

but who's goin'
to give up his hosses without a fight?

Half the time when Beldin's stock is out of the alfalfa it's grazin'
over the line.

He thinks he's careful about them hosses,
but he ain't."

"Look a-here,
Laddy;
you cain't believe all you hear,"
replied Jim,
seriously.

"I reckon we mightn't have any trouble."

"Back up,
Jim.

Shore you're standin'
on your bridle.

I ain't goin'
much on reports.

Remember that American we met in Casita,
the prospector who'd just gotten out of Sonora?

He had some story,
he had.

Swore he'd killed seventeen Greasers breakin'
through the rebel line round the mine where he an'
other Americans were corralled.

The next day when I met him again,
he was drunk,
an'
then he told me he'd shot thirty Greasers.

The chances are he did kill some.

But reports are exaggerated.

There are miners fightin'
for life down in Sonora,
you can gamble on that.

An'
the truth is bad enough.

Take Rojas's harryin'
of the Senorita,
for instance.

Can you beat that?

Shore,
Jim,
there's more doin'
than the raidin'
of a few hosses.

An'
Forlorn River is goin'
to get hers!"
Another dawn found Gale so much recovered that he arose and looked after himself,
not,
however,
without considerable difficulty and rather disheartening twinges of pain.

Some time during the morning he heard the girls in the patio and called
to ask if he might join them.

He received one response,
a mellow,
"Si,
Senor."

It was not as much as he wanted,
but considering that it was enough,
he went out.

He had not as yet visited the patio,
and surprise and delight were in store
for him.

He found himself lost in a labyrinth of green and rose-bordered walks.

He strolled around,
discovering that the patio was a courtyard,
open at an end;
but he failed
to discover the young ladies.

So he called again.

the answer cam from the center of the square.

After stooping
to get under shrubs and wading through bushes he entered an open sandy circle,
full of magnificent and murderous cactus plants,
strange
to him.

On the other side,
in the shade of a beautiful tree,
he found the girls.

Mercedes sitting in a hammock,
Nell upon a blanket.

"What a beautiful tree!"
he exclaimed.

"I never saw one like that.

What is it?"
"Palo verde,"
replied Nell.

"Senor,
palo verde means
'green tree,'"
added Mercedes.

This desert tree,
which had struck Dick as so new and strange and beautiful,
was not striking on account of size,
for it was small,
scarcely reaching higher than the roof;
but rather because of its exquisite color of green,
trunk and branch alike,
and owing
to the odd fact that it seemed not
to possess leaves.

All the tree from ground
to tiny flat twigs was a soft polished green.

It bore no thorns.

Right then and there began Dick's education in desert growths;
and he felt that even if he had not had such charming teachers he would still have been absorbed.

For the patio was full of desert wonders.

A twisting-trunked tree
with full foliage of small gray leaves Nell called a mesquite.

Then Dick remembered the name,
and now he saw where the desert got its pale-gray color.

A huge,
lofty,
fluted column of green was a saguaro,
or giant cactus.

Another oddshaped cactus,
resembling the legs of an inverted devil-fish,
bore the name ocatillo.

Each branch rose high and symmetrical,
furnished
with sharp blades that seemed
to be at once leaves and thorns.

Yet another cactus interested Gale,
and it looked like a huge,
low barrel covered
with green-ribbed cloth and long thorns.

This was the bisnaga,
or barrel cactus.

According
to Nell and Mercedes,
this plant was a happy exception
to its desert neighbors,
for it secreted water which had many times saved the lives of men.

Last of the cacti
to attract Gale,
and the one
to make him shiver,
was a low plant,
consisting of stem and many rounded protuberances of a frosty,
steely white,
and covered
with long murderous spikes.

From this plant the desert got its frosty glitter.

It was as stiff,
as unyielding as steel,
and bore the name choya.

Dick's enthusiasm was contagious,
and his earnest desire
to learn was flattering
to his teachers.

When it came
to assimilating Spanish,
however,
he did not appear
to be so apt a pupil.

He managed,
after many trials,
to acquire
"buenos dias"
and
"buenos tardes,"
and
"senorita"
and
"gracias,"
and a few other short terms.

Dick was indeed eager
to get a little smattering of Spanish,
and perhaps he was not really quite so stupid as he pretended
to be.

It was delightful
to be taught by a beautiful Spaniard who was so gracious and intense and magnetic of personality,
and by a sweet American girl who moment by moment forgot her shyness.

Gale wished
to prolong the lessons.

So that was the beginning of many afternoons in which he learned desert lore and Spanish verbs,
and something else that he dared not name.

Nell Burton had never shown
to Gale that daring side of her character which had been so suggestively defined in Belding's terse description and Ladd's encomiums,
and in her own audacious speech and merry laugh and flashing eye of that never-to-be-forgotten first meeting.

She might have been an entirely different girl.

But Gale remembered;
and when the ice had been somewhat broken between them,
he was always trying
to surprise her into her real self.

There were moments that fairly made him tingle
with expectation.

Yet he saw little more than a ghost of her vivacity,
and never a gleam of that individuality which Belding had called a devil.

On the few occasions that Dick had been left alone
with her in the patio Nell had grown suddenly unresponsive and restrained,
or she had left him on some transparent pretext.

On the last occasion Mercedes returned
to find Dick staring disconsolately at the rose-bordered path,
where Nell had evidently vanished.

The Spanish girl was wonderful in her divination.

"Senor Dick!"
she cried.

Dick looked at her,
soberly nodded his head,
and then he laughed.

Mercedes had seen through him in one swift glance.

Her white hand touched his in wordless sympathy and thrilled him.

This Spanish girl was all fire and passion and love.

She understood him,
she was his friend,
she pledged him what he felt would be the most subtle and powerful influence.

Little by little he learned details of Nell's varied life.

She had lived in many places.

As a child she remembered moving from town
to town,
of going
to school among schoolmates whom she never had time
to know.

Lawrence,
Kansas,
where she studied
for several years,
was the later exception
to this changeful nature of her schooling.

Then she moved
to Stillwater,
Oklahoma,
from there
to Austin,
Texas,
and on
to Waco,
where her mother met and married Belding.

They lived in New Mexico awhile,
in Tucson,
Arizona,
in Douglas,
and finally had come
to lonely Forlorn River.

"Mother could never live in one place any length of time,"
said Nell.

"And since we've been in the Southwest she has never ceased trying
to find some trace of her father.

He was last heard of in Nogales fourteen years ago.

She thinks grandfather was lost in the Sonora Desert....And every place we go is worse.

Oh,
I love the desert.

But I'd like
to go back
to Lawrence--or
to see Chicago or New York--some of the places Mr. Gale speaks of....

I remember the college at Lawrence,
though I was only twelve.

I saw races--and once real football.

Since then I've read magazines and papers about big football games,
and I was always fascinated ....Mr. Gale,
of course,
you've seen games?

"Yes,
a few,"
replied Dick;
and he laughed a little.

It was on his lips then
to tell her about some of the famous games in which he had participated.

But he refrained from exploiting himself.

There was little,
however,
of the color and sound and cheer,
of the violent action and rush and battle incidental
to a big college football game that he did not succeed in making Mercedes and Nell feel just as if they had been there.

They hung breathless and wide-eyed upon his words.

Some one else was present at the latter part of Dick's narrative.

The moment he became aware of Mrs. Belding's presence he remembered fancying he had heard her call,
and now he was certain she had done so.

Mercedes and Nell,
however,
had been and still were oblivious
to everything except Dick's recital.

He saw Mrs. Belding cast a strange,
intent glance upon Nell,
then turn and go silently through the patio.

Dick concluded his talk,
but the brilliant beginning was not sustained.

Dick was haunted by the strange expression he had caught on Mrs. Belding's face,
especially the look in her eyes.

It had been one of repressed pain liberated in a flash of certainty.

The mother had seen just as quickly as Mercedes how far he had gone on the road of love.

Perhaps she had seen more--even more than he dared hope.

The incident roused Gale.

He could not understand Mrs. Belding,
nor why that look of hers,
that seeming baffled,
hopeless look of a woman who saw the inevitable forces of life and could not thwart them,
should cause him perplexity and distress.

He wanted
to go
to her and tell her how he felt about Nell,
but fear of absolute destruction of his hopes held him back.

He would wait.

Nevertheless,
an instinct that was perhaps akin
to self-preservation prompted him
to want
to let Nell know the state of his mind.

Words crowded his brain seeking utterance.

Who and what he was,
how he loved her,
the work he expected
to take up soon,
his longings,
hopes,
and plans--there was all this and more.

But something checked him.

And the repression made him so thoughtful and quiet,
even melancholy,
that he went outdoors
to try
to throw off the mood.

The sun was yet high,
and a dazzling white light enveloped valleys and peaks.

He felt that the wonderful sunshine was the dominant feature of that arid region.

It was like white gold.

It had burned its color in a face he knew.

It was going
to warm his blood and brown his skin.

A hot,
languid breeze,
so dry that he felt his lips shrink
with its contact,
came from the desert;
and it seemed
to smell of wide-open,
untainted places where sand blew and strange,
pungent plants gave a bitter-sweet tang
to the air.

When he returned
to the house,
some hours later,
his room had been put in order.

In the middle of the white coverlet on his table lay a fresh red rose.

Nell had dropped it there.

Dick picked it up,
feeling a throb in his breast.

It was a bud just beginning
to open,
to show between its petals a dark-red,
unfolding heart.

How fragrant it was,
how exquisitely delicate,
how beautiful its inner hue of red,
deep and dark,
the crimson of life blood! Had Nell left it there by accident or by intent?

Was it merely kindness or a girl's subtlety?

Was it a message couched elusively,
a symbol,
a hope in a half-blown desert rose?

VI The Yaqui Toward evening of a lowering December day,
some fifty miles west of Forlorn River,
a horseman rode along an old,
dimly defined trail.

From time
to time he halted
to study the lay of the land ahead.

It was bare,
somber,
ridgy desert,
covered
with dun-colored greasewood and stunted prickly pear.

Distant mountains hemmed in the valley,
raising black spurs above the round lomas and the square-walled mesas.

This lonely horseman bestrode a steed of magnificent build,
perfectly white except
for a dark bar of color running down the noble head from ears
to nose.

Sweatcaked dust stained the long flanks.

The horse had been running.

His mane and tail were laced and knotted
to keep their length out of reach of grasping cactus and brush.

Clumsy home-made leather shields covered the front of his forelegs and ran up well
to his wide breast.

What otherwise would have been muscular symmetry of limb was marred by many a scar and many a lump.

He was lean,
gaunt,
worn,
a huge machine of muscle and bone,
beautiful only in head and mane,
a weight-carrier,
a horse strong and fierce like the desert that had bred him.

The rider fitted the horse as he fitted the saddle.

He was a young man of exceedingly powerful physique,
wide-shouldered,
long-armed,
big-legged.

His lean face,
where it was not red,
blistered and peeling,
was the hue of bronze.

He had a dark eye,
a falcon gaze,
roving and keen.

His jaw was prominent and set,
mastiff-like;
his lips were stern.

It was youth
with its softness not yet quite burned and hardened away that kept the whole cast of his face from being ruthless.

This young man was Dick Gale,
but not the listless traveler,
nor the lounging wanderer who,
two months before,
had by chance dropped into Casita.

Friendship,
chivalry,
love--the deep-seated,
unplumbed emotions that had been stirred into being
with all their incalculable power
for spiritual change,
had rendered different the meaning of life.

In the moment almost of their realization the desert had claimed Gale,
and had drawn him into its crucible.

The desert had multiplied weeks into years.

Heat,
thirst,
hunger,
loneliness,
toil,
fear,
ferocity,
pain--he knew them all.

He had felt them all--the white sun,
with its glazed,
coalescing,
lurid fire;
the caked split lips and rasping,
dry-puffed tongue;
the sickening ache in the pit of his stomach;
the insupportable silence,
the empty space,
the utter desolation,
the contempt of life;
the weary ride,
the long climb,
the plod in sand,
the search,
search,
search
for water;
the sleepless night alone,
the watch and wait,
the dread of ambush,
the swift flight;
the fierce pursuit of men wild as Bedouins and as fleet,
the willingness
to deal sudden death,
the pain of poison thorn,
the stinging tear of lead through flesh;
and that strange paradox of the burning desert,
the cold at night,
the piercing icy wind,
the dew that penetrated
to the marrow,
the numbing desert cold of the dawn.

Beyond any dream of adventure he had ever had,
beyond any wild story he had every read,
had been his experience
with those hard-riding rangers,
Ladd and Lash.

Then he had traveled alone the hundred miles of desert between Forlorn River and the Sonoyta Oasis.

Ladd's prophecy of trouble on the border had been mild compared
to what had become the actuality.

With rebel occupancy of the garrison at Casita,
outlaws,
bandits,
raiders in rioting bands had spread westward.

Like troops of Arabs,
magnificently mounted,
they were here,
there,
everywhere along the line;
and if murder and worse were confined
to the Mexican side,
pillage and raiding were perpetrated across the border.

Many a dark-skinned raider bestrode one of Belding's fast horses,
and indeed all except his selected white thoroughbreds had been stolen.

So the job of the rangers had become more than a patrolling of the boundary line
to keep Japanese and Chinese from being smuggled into the United States.

Belding kept close at home
to protect his family and
to hold his property.

But the three rangers,
in fulfilling their duty had incurred risks on their own side of the line,
had been outraged,
robbed,
pursued,
and injured on the other.

Some of the few waterholes that had
to be reached lay far across the border in Mexican territory.

Horses had
to drink,
men had
to drink;
and Ladd and Lash were not of the stripe that forsook a task because of danger.

Slow
to wrath at first,
as became men who had long lived peaceful lives,
they had at length revolted;
and desert vultures could have told a gruesome story.

Made a comrade and ally of these bordermen,
Dick Gale had leaped at the desert action and strife
with an intensity of heart and a rare physical ability which accounted
for the remarkable fact that he had not yet fallen by the way.

On this December afternoon the three rangers,
as often,
were separated.

Lash was far
to the westward of Sonoyta,
somewhere along Camino del Diablo,
that terrible Devil's Road,
where many desert wayfarers had perished.

Ladd had long been overdue in a prearranged meeting
with Gale.

The fact that Ladd had not shown up miles west of the Papago Well was significant.

The sun had hidden behind clouds all the latter part of that day,
an unusual occurrence
for that region even in winter.

And now,
as the light waned suddenly,
telling of the hidden sunset,
a cold dry,
penetrating wind sprang up and blew in Gale's face.

Not at first,
but by imperceptible degrees it chilled him.

He untied his coat from the back of the saddle and put it on.

A few cold drops of rain touched his cheek.

He halted upon the edge of a low escarpment.

Below him the narrowing valley showed bare,
black ribs of rock,
long,
winding gray lines leading down
to a central floor where mesquite and cactus dotted the barren landscape.

Moving objects,
diminutive in size,
gray and white in color,
arrested Gale's roving sight.

They bobbed away
for a while,
then stopped.

They were antelope,
and they had seen his horse.

When he rode on they started once more,
keeping
to the lowest level.

These wary animals were often desert watchdogs
for the ranger,
they would betray the proximity of horse or man.

With them trotting forward,
he made better time
for some miles across the valley.

When he lost them,
caution once more slowed his advance.

The valley sloped up and narrowed,
to head into an arroyo where grass began
to show gray between the clumps of mesquite.

Shadows formed ahead in the hollows,
along the walls of the arroyo,
under the trees,
and they seemed
to creep,
to rise,
to float into a veil cast by the background of bold mountains,
at last
to claim the skyline.

Night was not close at hand,
but it was there in the east,
lifting upward,
drooping downward,
encroaching upon the west.

Gale dismounted
to lead his horse,
to go forward more slowly.

He had ridden sixty miles since morning,
and he was tired,
and a not entirely healed wound in his hip made one leg drag a little.

A mile up the arroyo,
near its head,
lay the Papago Well.

The need of water
for his horse entailed a risk that otherwise he could have avoided.

The well was on Mexican soil.

Gale distinguished a faint light flickering through the thin,
sharp foliage.

Campers were at the well,
and,
whoever they were,
no doubt they had prevented Ladd from meeting Gale.

Ladd had gone back
to the next waterhole,
or maybe he was hiding in an arroyo
to the eastward,
awaiting developments.

Gale turned his horse,
not without urge of iron arm and persuasive speech,
for the desert steed scented water,
and plodded back
to the edge of the arroyo,
where in a secluded circle of mesquite he halted.

The horse snorted his relief at the removal of the heavy,
burdened saddle and accoutrements,
and sagging,
bent his knees,
lowered himself
with slow heave,
and plunged down
to roll in the sand.

Gale poured the contents of his larger canteen into his hat and held it
to the horse's nose.

"Drink,
Sol,"
he said.

It was but a drop
for a thirsty horse.

However,
Blanco Sol rubbed a west muzzle against Gale's hand in appreciation.

Gale loved the horse,
and was loved in return.

They had saved each other's lives,
and had spent long days and nights of desert solitude together.

Sol had known other masters,
though none so kind as this new one;
but it was certain that Gale had never before known a horse.

The spot of secluded ground was covered
with bunches of galleta grass upon which Sol began
to graze.

Gale made a long halter of his lariat
to keep the horse from wandering in search of water.

Next Gale kicked off the cumbersome chapparejos,
with their flapping,
tripping folds of leather over his feet,
and drawing a long rifle from its leather sheath,
he slipped away into the shadows.

The coyotes were howling,
not here and there,
but in concerted volume at the head of the arroyo.

To Dick this was no more reassuring than had been the flickering light of the campfire.

The wild desert dogs,
with their characteristic insolent curiosity,
were baying men round a campfire.

Gale proceeded slowly,
halting every few steps,
careful not
to brush against the stiff greasewood.

In the soft sand his steps made no sound.

The twinkling light vanished occasionally,
like a Jack-o'lantern,
and when it did show it seemed still a long way off.

Gale was not seeking trouble or inviting danger.

Water was the thing that drove him.

He must see who these campers were,
and then decide how
to give Blanco Sol a drink.

A rabbit rustled out of brush at Gale's feet and thumped away over the sand.

The wind pattered among dry,
broken stalks of dead ocatilla.

Every little sound brought Gale
to a listening pause.

The gloom was thickening fast into darkness.

It would be a night without starlight.

He moved forward up the pale,
zigzag aisles between the mesquite.

He lost the light
for a while,
but the coyotes'
chorus told him he was approaching the campfire.

Presently the light danced through the black branches,
and soon grew into a flame.

Stooping low,
with bushy mesquites between him and the fire,
Gale advanced.

The coyotes were in full cry.

Gale heard the tramping,
stamping thumps of many hoofs.

The sound worried him.

Foot by foot he advanced,
and finally began
to crawl.

The wind favored his position,
so that neither coyotes nor horses could scent him.

The nearer he approached the head of the arroyo,
where the well was located,
the thicker grew the desert vegetation.

At length a dead palo verde,
with huge black clumps of its parasite mistletoe thick in the branches,
marked a distance from the well that Gale considered close enough.

Noiselessly he crawled here and there until he secured a favorable position,
and then rose
to peep from behind his covert.

He saw a bright fire,
not a cooking-fire,
for that would have been low and red,
but a crackling blaze of mesquite.

Three men were in sight,
all close
to the burning sticks.

They were Mexicans and of the coarse type of raiders,
rebels,
bandits that Gale expected
to see.

One stood up,
his back
to the fire;
another sat
with shoulders enveloped in a blanket,
and the third lounged in the sand,
his feet almost in the blaze.

They had cast off belts and weapons.

A glint of steel caught Gale's eye.

Three short,
shiny carbines leaned against a rock.

A little
to the left,
within the circle of light,
stood a square house made of adobe bricks.

Several untrimmed poles upheld a roof of brush,
which was partly fallen in.

This house was a Papago Indian habitation,
and a month before had been occupied by a family that had been murdered or driven off by a roving band of outlaws.

A rude corral showed dimly in the edge of firelight,
and from a black mass within came the snort and stamp and whinney of horses.

Gale took in the scene in one quick glance,
then sank down at the foot of the mesquite.

He had naturally expected
to see more men.

but the situation was by no means new.

This was one,
or part of one,
of the raider bands harrying the border.

They were stealing horses,
or driving a herd already stolen.

These bands were more numerous than the waterholes of northern Sonora;
they never camped long at one place;
like Arabs,
they roamed over the desert all the way from Nogales
to Casita.

If Gale had gone peaceably up
to this campfire there were a hundred chances that the raiders would kill and rob him
to one chance that they might not.

If they recognized him as a ranger comrade of Ladd and Lash,
if they got a glimpse of Blanco Sol,
then Gale would have no chance.

These Mexicans had evidently been at the well some time.

Their horses being in the corral meant that grazing had been done by day.

Gale revolved questions in mind.

Had this trio of outlaws run across Ladd?

It was not likely,
for in that event they might not have been so comfortable and care-free in camp.

Were they waiting
for more members of their gang?

That was very probable.

With Gale,
however,
the most important consideration was how
to get his horse
to water.

Sol must have a drink if it cost a fight.

There was stern reason
for Gale
to hurry eastward along the trail.

He thought it best
to go back
to where he had left his horse and not make any decisive move until daylight.

With the same noiseless care he had exercised in the advance,
Gale retreated until it was safe
for him
to rise and walk on down the arroyo.

He found Blanco Sol contentedly grazing.

A heavy dew was falling,
and,
as the grass was abundant,
the horse did not show the usual restlessness and distress after a dry and exhausting day.

Gale carried his saddle blankets and bags into the lee of a little greasewood-covered mound,
from around which the wind had cut the soil,
and here,
in a wash,
he risked building a small fire.

By this time the wind was piercingly cold.

Gale's hands were numb and he moved them
to and fro in the little blaze.

Then he made coffee in a cup cooked some slices of bacon on the end of a stick,
and took a couple of hard biscuits from a saddlebag.

Of these his meal consisted.

After that he removed the halter from Blanco Sol,
intending
to leave him free
to graze
for a while.

Then Gale returned
to his little fire,
replenished it
with short sticks of dead greasewood and mesquite,
and,
wrapping his blanket round his shoulders he sat down
to warm himself and
to wait till it was time
to bring in the horse and tie him up.

The fire was inadequate and Gale was cold and wet
with dew.

Hunger and thirst were
with him.

His bones ached,
and there was a dull,
deep-seated pain throbbing in his unhealed wound.

For days unshaven,
his beard seemed like a million pricking needles in his blistered skin.

He was so tired that once having settled himself,
he did not move hand or foot.

The night was dark,
dismal,
cloudy,
windy,
growing colder.

A moan of wind in the mesquite was occasionally pierced by the high-keyed yelp of a coyote.

There were lulls in which the silence seemed
to be a thing of stifling.

encroaching substance--a thing that enveloped,
buried the desert.

Judged by the great average of ideals and conventional standards of life,
Dick Gale was a starved,
lonely,
suffering,
miserable wretch.

But in his case the judgment would have hit only externals,
would have missed the vital inner truth.

For Gale was happy
with a kind of strange,
wild glory in the privations,
the pains,
the perils,
and the silence and solitude
to be endured on this desert land.

In the past he had not been of any use
to himself or others;
and he had never know what it meant
to be hungry,
cold,
tired,
lonely.

He had never worked
for anything.

The needs of the day had been provided,
and to-morrow and the future looked the same.

Danger,
peril,
toil--these had been words read in books and papers.

In the present he used his hands,
his senses,
and his wits.

He had a duty
to a man who relied on his services.

He was a comrade,
a friend,
a valuable ally
to riding,
fighting rangers.

He had spend endless days,
weeks that seemed years,
alone
with a horse,
trailing over,
climbing over,
hunting over a desert that was harsh and hostile by nature,
and perilous by the invasion of savage men.

That horse had become human
to Gale.

And
with him Gale had learned
to know the simple needs of existence.

Like dead scales the superficialities,
the falsities,
the habits that had once meant all of life dropped off,
useless things in this stern waste of rock and sand.

Gale's happiness,
as far as it concerned the toil and strife,
was perhaps a grim and stoical one.

But love abided
with him,
and it had engendered and fostered other undeveloped traits--romance and a feeling
for beauty,
and a keen observation of nature.

He felt pain,
but he was never miserable.

He felt the solitude,
but he was never lonely.

As he rode across the desert,
even though keen eyes searched
for the moving black dots,
the rising puffs of white dust that were warnings,
he saw Nell's face in every cloud.

The clean-cut mesas took on the shape of her straight profile,
with its strong chin and lips,
its fine nose and forehead.

There was always a glint of gold or touch of red or graceful line or gleam of blue
to remind him of her.

Then at night her face shone warm and glowing,
flushing and paling,
in the campfire.

To-night,
as usual,
with a keen ear
to the wind,
Gale listened as one on guard;
yet he watched the changing phantom of a sweet face in the embers,
and as he watched he thought.

The desert developed and multiplied thought.

A thousand sweet faces glowed in the pink and white ashes of his campfire,
the faces of other sweethearts or wives that had gleamed
for other men.

Gale was happy in his thought of Nell,
for Nell,
for something,
when he was alone this way in the wilderness,
told him she was near him,
she thought of him,
she loved him.

But there were many men alone on that vast southwestern plateau,
and when they saw dream faces,
surely
for some it was a fleeting flash,
a gleam soon gone,
like the hope and the name and the happiness that had been and was now no more.

Often Gale thought of those hundreds of desert travelers,
prospectors,
wanderers who had ventured down the Camino del Diablo,
never
to be heard of again.

Belding had told him of that most terrible of all desert trails--a trail of shifting sands.

Lash had traversed it,
and brought back stories of buried waterholes,
of bones bleaching white in the sun,
of gold mines as lost as were the prospectors who had sought them,
of the merciless Yaqui and his hatred
for the Mexican.

Gale thought of this trail and the men who had camped along it.

For many there had been one night,
one campfire that had been the last.

This idea seemed
to creep in out of the darkness,
the loneliness,
the silence,
and
to find a place in Gale's mind,
so that it had strange fascination
for him.

He knew now as he had never dreamed before how men drifted into the desert,
leaving behind graves,
wrecked homes,
ruined lives,
lost wives and sweethearts.

And
for every wanderer every campfire had a phantom face.

Gale measured the agony of these men at their last campfire by the joy and promise he traced in the ruddy heart of his own.

By and by Gale remembered what he was waiting for;
and,
getting up,
he took the halter and went out
to find Blanco Sol.

It was pitch-dark now,
and Gale could not see a rod ahead.

He felt his way,
and presently as he rounded a mesquite he saw Sol's white shape outlined against the blackness.

The horse jumped and wheeled,
ready
to run.

It was doubtful if any one unknown
to Sol could ever have caught him.

Gale's low call reassured him,
and he went on grazing.

Gale haltered him in the likeliest patch of grass and returned
to his camp.

There he lifted his saddle into a protected spot under a low wall of the mound,
and,
laying one blanket on the sand,
he covered himself
with the other and stretched himself
for the night.

Here he was out of reach of the wind;
but he heard its melancholy moan in the mesquite.

There was no other sound.

The coyotes had ceased their hungry cries.

Gale dropped
to sleep,
and slept soundly during the first half of the night;
and after that he seemed always
to be partially awake,
aware of increasing cold and damp.

The dark mantle turned gray,
and then daylight came quickly.

The morning was clear and nipping cold.

He threw off the wet blanket and got up cramped and half frozen.

A little brisk action was all that was necessary
to warm his blood and loosen his muscles,
and then he was fresh,
tingling,
eager.

The sun rose in a golden blaze,
and the descending valley took on wondrous changing hues.

Then he fetched up Blanco Sol,
saddled him,
and tied him
to the thickest clump of mesquite.

"Sol,
we'll have a drink pretty soon,"
he said,
patting the splendid neck.

Gale meant it.

He would not eat till he had watered his horse.

Sol had gone nearly forty-eight hours without a sufficient drink,
and that was long enough,
even
for a desert-bred beast.

No three raiders could keep Gale away from that well.

Taking his rifle in hand,
he faced up the arroyo.

Rabbits were frisking in the short willows,
and some were so tame he could have kicked them.

Gale walked swiftly
for a goodly part of the distance,
and then,
when he saw blue smoke curling up above the trees,
he proceeded slowly,
with alert eye and ear.

From the lay of the land and position of trees seen by daylight,
he found an easier and safer course that the one he had taken in the dark.

And by careful work he was enabled
to get closer
to the well,
and somewhat above it.

The Mexicans were leisurely cooking their morning meal.

They had two fires,
one
for warmth,
the other
to cook over.

Gale had an idea these raiders were familiar
to him.

It seemed all these border hawks resembled one another--being mostly small of build,
wiry,
angular,
swarthy-faced,
and black-haired,
and they wore the oddly styled Mexican clothes and sombreros.

A slow wrath stirred in Gale as he watched the trio.

They showed not the slightest indication of breaking camp.

One fellow,
evidently the leader,
packed a gun at his hip,
the only weapon in sight.

Gale noted this
with speculative eyes.

The raiders had slept inside the little adobe house,
and had not yet brought out the carbines.

Next Gale swept his gaze
to the corral,
in which he saw more than a dozen horses,
some of them fine animals.

They were stamping and whistling,
fighting one another,
and pawing the dirt.

This was entirely natural behavior
for desert horses penned in when they wanted
to get at water and grass.

But suddenly one of the blacks,
a big,
shaggy fellow,
shot up his ears and pointed his nose over the top of the fence.

He whistled.

Other horses looked in the same direction,
and their ears went up,
and they,
too,
whistled.

Gale knew that other horses or men,
very likely both,
were approaching.

But the Mexicans did not hear the alarm,
or show any interest if they did.

These mescal-drinking raiders were not scouts.

It was notorious how easily they could be surprised or ambushed.

Mostly they were ignorant,
thick-skulled peons.

They were wonderful horsemen,
and could go long without food or water;
but they had not other accomplishments or attributes calculated
to help them in desert warfare.

They had poor sight,
poor hearing,
poor judgment,
and when excited they resembled crazed ants running wild.

Gale saw two Indians on burros come riding up the other side of the knoll upon which the adobe house stood;
and apparently they were not aware of the presence of the Mexicans,
for they came on up the path.

One Indian was a Papago.

The other,
striking in appearance
for other reasons than that he seemed
to be about
to fall from the burro,
Gale took
to be a Yaqui.

These travelers had absolutely nothing
for an outfit except a blanket and a half-empty bag.

They came over the knoll and down the path toward the well,
turned a corner of the house,
and completely surprised the raiders.

Gale heard a short,
shrill cry,
strangely high and wild,
and this came from one of the Indians.

It was answered by hoarse shouts.

Then the leader of the trio,
the Mexican who packed a gun,
pulled it and fired point-blank.

He missed once--and again.

At the third shot the Papago shrieked and tumbled off his burro
to fall in a heap.

The other Indian swayed,
as if the taking away of the support lent by his comrade had brought collapse,
and
with the fourth shot he,
too,
slipped
to the ground.

The reports had frightened the horses in the corral;
and the vicious black,
crowding the rickety bars,
broke them down.

He came plunging out.

Two of the Mexicans ran
for him,
catching him by nose and mane,
and the third ran
to block the gateway.

Then,
with a splendid vaulting mount,
the Mexican
with the gun leaped
to the back of the horse.

He yelled and waved his gun,
and urged the black forward.

The manner of all three was savagely jocose.

They were having sport.

The two on the ground began
to dance and jabber.

The mounted leader shot again,
and then stuck like a leech upon the bare back of the rearing black.

It was a vain show of horsemanship.

Then this Mexican,
by some strange grip,
brought the horse down,
plunging almost upon the body of the Indian that had fallen last.

Gale stood aghast
with his rifle clutched tight.

He could not divine the intention of the raider,
but suspected something brutal.

The horse answered
to that cruel,
guiding hand,
yet he swerved and bucked.

He reared aloft,
pawing the air,
wildly snorting,
then he plunged down upon the prostrate Indian.

Even in the act the intelligent animal tried
to keep from striking the body
with his hoofs.

But that was not possible.

A yell,
hideous in its passion,
signaled this feat of horsemanship.

The Mexican made no move
to trample the body of the Papago.

He turned the black
to ride again over the other Indian.

That brought into Gale's mind what he had heard of a Mexican's hate
for a Yaqui.

It recalled the barbarism of these savage peons,
and the war of extermination being waged upon the Yaquis.

Suddenly Gale was horrified
to see the Yaqui writhe and raise a feeble hand.

The action brought renewed and more savage cries from the Mexicans.

The horse snorted in terror.

Gale could bear no more.

He took a quick shot at the rider.

He missed the moving figure,
but hit the horse.

There was a bound,
a horrid scream,
a mighty plunge,
then the horse went down,
giving the Mexican a stunning fall.

Both beast and man lay still.

Gale rushed from his cover
to intercept the other raiders before they could reach the house and their weapons.

One fellow yelled and ran wildly in the opposite direction;
the other stood stricken in his tracks.

Gale ran in close and picked up the gun that had dropped from the raider leader's hand.

This fellow had begun
to stir,
to come out of his stunned condition.

Then the frightened horses burst the corral bars,
and in a thundering,
dust-mantled stream fled up the arroyo.

The fallen raider sat up,
mumbling
to his saints in one breath,
cursing in his next.

The other Mexican kept his stand,
intimidated by the threatening rifle.

"Go,
Greasers! Run!"
yelled Gale.

Then he yelled it in Spanish.

At the point of his rifle he drove the two raiders out of the camp.

His next move was
to run into the house and fetch out the carbines.

With a heavy stone he dismantled each weapon.

That done,
he set out on a run
for his horse.

He took the shortest cut down the arroyo,
with no concern as
to whether or not he would encounter the raiders.

Probably such a meeting would be all the worse
for them,
and they knew it.

Blanco Sol heard him coming and whistled a welcome,
and when Gale ran up the horse was snorting war.

Mounting,
Gale rode rapidly back
to the scene of the action,
and his first thought,
when he arrived at the well,
was
to give Sol a drink and
to fill his canteens.

Then Gale led his horse up out of the waterhole,
and decided before remounting
to have a look at the Indians.

The Papago had been shot through the heart,
but the Yaqui was still alive.

Moreover,
he was conscious and staring up at Gale
with great,
strange,
somber eyes,
black as volcanic slag.

"Gringo good--no kill,"
he said,
in husky whisper.

His speech was not affirmative so much as questioning.

"Yaqui,
you're done for,"
said Gale,
and his words were positive.

He was simply speaking aloud his mind.

"Yaqui--no hurt--much,"
replied the Indian,
and then he spoke a strange word--repeated it again and again.

An instinct of Gale's,
or perhaps some suggestion in the husky,
thick whisper or dark face,
told Gale
to reach
for his canteen.

He lifted the Indian and gave him a drink,
and if ever in all his life he saw gratitude in human eyes he saw it then.

Then he examined the injured Yaqui,
not forgetting
for an instant
to send wary,
fugitive glances on all sides.

Gale was not surprised.

The Indian had three wounds--a bullet hole in his shoulder,
a crushed arm,
and a badly lacerated leg.

What had been the matter
with him before being set upon by the raider Gale could not be certain.

The ranger thought rapidly.

This Yaqui would live unless left there
to die or be murdered by the Mexicans when they found courage
to sneak back
to the well.

It never occurred
to Gale
to abandon the poor fellow.

That was where his old training,
the higher order of human feeling,
made impossible the following of any elemental instinct of self-preservation.

All the same,
Gale knew he multiplied his perils a hundredfold by burdening himself
with a crippled Indian.

Swiftly he set
to work,
and
with rifle ever under his hand,
and shifting glance spared from his task,
he bound up the Yaqui's wounds.

At the same time he kept keen watch.

The Indians'
burros and the horses of the raiders were all out of sight.

Time was too valuable
for Gale
to use any in what might be a vain search.

Therefore,
he lifted the Yaqui upon Sol's broad shoulders and climbed into the saddle.

At a word Sol dropped his head and started eastward up the trail,
walking swiftly,
without resentment
for his double burden.

Far ahead,
between two huge mesas where the trail mounted over a pass,
a long line of dust clouds marked the position of the horses that had escaped from the corral.

Those that had been stolen would travel straight and true
for home,
and perhaps would lead the others
with them.

The raiders were left on the desert without guns or mounts.

Blanco Sol walked or jog-trotted six miles
to the hour.

At that gait fifty miles would not have wet or turned a hair of his dazzling white coat.

Gale,
bearing in mind the ever-present possibility of encountering more raiders and of being pursued,
saved the strength of the horse.

Once out of sight of Papago Well,
Gale dismounted and walked beside the horse,
steadying
with one firm hand the helpless,
dangling Yaqui.

The sun cleared the eastern ramparts,
and the coolness of morning fled as if before a magic foe.

The whole desert changed.

The grays wore bright;
the mesquites glistened;
the cactus took the silver hue of frost,
and the rocks gleamed gold and red.

Then,
as the heat increased,
a wind rushed up out of the valley behind Gale,
and the hotter the sun blazed down the swifter rushed the wind.

The wonderful transparent haze of distance lost its bluish hue
for one
with tinge of yellow.

Flying sand made the peaks dimly outlined.

Gale kept pace
with his horse.

He bore the twinge of pain that darted through his injured hip at every stride.

His eye roved over the wide,
smoky prospect seeking the landmarks he knew.

When the wild and bold spurs of No Name Mountains loomed through a rent in flying clouds of sand he felt nearer home.

Another hour brought him abreast of a dark,
straight shaft rising clear from a beetling escarpment.

This was a monument marking the international boundary line.

When he had passed it he had his own country under foot.

In the heat of midday he halted in the shade of a rock,
and,
lifting the Yak down,
gave him a drink.

Then,
after a long,
sweeping survey of the surrounding desert,
he removed Sold's saddle and let him roll,
and took
for himself a welcome rest and a bite
to eat.

The Yak was tenacious of life.

He was still holding his own.

For the first time Gale really looked at the Indian
to study him.

He had a large head nobly cast,
and a face that resembled a shrunken mask.

It seemed chiseled in the dark-red,
volcanic lava of his Sooner wilderness.

The Indian's eyes were always black and mystic,
but this Yak's encompassed all the tragic desolation of the desert.

They were fixed on Gale,
moved only when he moved.

The Indian was short and broad,
and his body showed unusual muscular development,
although he seemed greatly emaciated from starvation or illness.

Gale resumed his homeward journey.

When he got through the pass he faced a great depression,
as rough as if millions of gigantic spikes had been driven by the hammer of Thorn into a seamed and cracked floor.

This was Altar Valley.

It was a chaos of array's,
canyons,
rocks,
and ridges all mantled
with cactus,
and at its eastern end it claimed the dry bed of Forlorn River and water when there was any.

With a wounded,
helpless man across the saddle,
this stretch of thorny and contorted desert was practically impassable.

Yet Gale headed into it unflinchingly.

He would carry the Yaqui as far as possible,
or until death made the burden no longer a duty.

Blanco Sol plodded on over the dragging sand,
up and down the steep,
loose banks of washes,
out on the rocks,
and through the rows of white-toothed choyas.

The sun sloped westward,
bending fiercer heat in vengeful,
parting reluctance.

The wind slackened.

The dust settled.

And the bold,
forbidding front of No Name Mountains changed
to red and gold.

Gale held grimly by the side of the tireless,
implacable horse,
holding the Yaqui on the saddle,
taking the brunt of the merciless thorns.

In the end it became heartrending toil.

His heavy chaps dragged him down;
but he dared not go on without them,
for,
thick and stiff as they were,
the terrible,
steel-bayoneted spikes of the choyas pierced through
to sting his legs.

To the last mile Gale held
to Blanco Sol's gait and kept ever-watchful gaze ahead on the trail.

Then,
with the low,
flat houses of Forlorn River shining red in the sunset,
Gale flagged and rapidly weakened.

The Yaqui slipped out of the saddle and dropped limp in the sand.

Gale could not mount his horse.

He clutched Sol's long tail and twisted his hand in it and staggered on.

Blanco Sol whistled a piercing blast.

He scented cool water and sweet alfalfa hay.

Twinkling lights ahead meant rest.

The melancholy desert twilight rapidly succeeded the sunset.

It accentuated the forlorn loneliness of the gray,
winding river of sand and its grayer shores.

Night shadows trooped down from the black and looming mountains.

VII White Horses
"A crippled Yaqui! Why the hell did you saddle yourself
with him?"
roared Belding,
as he laid Gale upon the bed.

Belding had grown hard these late,
violent weeks.

"Because I chose,"
whispered Gale,
in reply.

"Go after him--he dropped in the trail--across the river--near the first big saguaro."

Belding began
to swear as he fumbled
with matches and the lamp;
but as the light flared up he stopped short in the middle of a word.

"You said you weren't hurt?"
he demanded,
in sharp anxiety,
as he bent over Gale.

"I'm only--all in....Will you go--or send some one--for the Yaqui?"
"Sure,
Dick,
sure,"
Belding replied,
in softer tones.

Then he stalked out;
his heels rang on the flagstones;
he opened a door and called:

"Mother--girls,
here's Dick back.

He's done up....Now --no,
no,
he's not hurt or in bad shape.

You women!...Do what you can
to make him comfortable.

I've got a little job on hand."

There were quick replies that Gale's dulling ears did not distinguish.

Then it seemed Mrs. Belding was beside his bed,
her presence so cool and soothing and helpful,
and Mercedes and Nell,
wide-eyed and white-faced,
were fluttering around him.

He drank thirstily,
but refused food.

He wanted rest.

And
with their faces drifting away in a kind of haze,
with the feeling of gentle hands about him,
he lost consciousness.

He slept twenty hours.

then he arose,
thirsty,
hungry,
lame,
overworn,
and presently went in search of Belding and the business of the day.

"Your Yaqui was near dead,
but guess we'll pull him through,"
said Belding.

"Dick,
the other day that Indian came here by rail and foot and Lord only knows how else,
all the way from New Orleans! He spoke English better than most Indians,
and I know a little Yaqui.

I got some of his story and guessed the rest.

The Mexican government is trying
to root out the Yaquis.

A year ago his tribe was taken in chains
to a Mexican port on the Gulf.

The fathers,
mothers,
children,
were separated and put in ships bound
for Yucatan.

There they were made slaves on the great henequen plantations.

They were driven,
beaten,
starved.

Each slave had
for a day's rations a hunk of sour dough,
no more.

Yucatan is low,
marshy,
damp,
hot.

The Yaquis were bred on the high,
dry Sonoran plateau,
where the air is like a knife.

They dropped dead in the henequen fields,
and their places were taken by more.

You see,
the Mexicans won't kill outright in their war of extermination of the Yaquis.

They get use out of them.

It's a horrible thing....Well,
this Yaqui you brought in escaped from his captors,
got aboard ship,
and eventually reached New Orleans.

Somehow he traveled way out here.

I gave him a bag of food,
and he went off
with a Papago Indian.

He was a sick man then.

And he must have fallen foul of some Greasers."

Gale told of his experience at Papago Well.

"That raider who tried
to grind the Yaqui under a horse's hoofs--he was a hyena!"
concluded Gale,
shuddering.

"I've seen some blood spilled and some hard sights,
but that inhuman devil took my nerve.

Why,
as I told you,
Belding,
I missed a shot at him--not twenty paces!"
"Dick,
in cases like that the sooner you clean up the bunch the better,"
said Belding,
grimly.

"As
for hard sights--wait till you've seen a Yaqui do up a Mexican.

Bar none,
that is the limit! It's blood lust,
a racial hate,
deep as life,
and terrible.

The Spaniards crushed the Aztecs four or five hundred years ago.

That hate has had time
to grow as deep as a cactus root.

The Yaquis are mountain Aztecs.

Personally,
I think they are noble and intelligent,
and if let alone would be peaceable and industrious.

I like the few I've known.

But they are a doomed race.

Have you any idea what ailed this Yaqui before the raider got in his work?"
"No,
I haven't.

I noticed the Indian seemed in bad shape;
but I couldn't tell what was the matter
with him."

"Well,
my idea is another personal one.

Maybe it's off color.

I think that Yaqui was,
or is,
for that matter,
dying of a broken heart.

All he wanted was
to get back
to his mountains and die.

There are no Yaquis left in that part of Sonora he was bound for."

"He had a strange look in his eyes,"
said Gale,
thoughtfully.

"Yes,
I noticed that.

But all Yaquis have a wild look.

Dick,
if I'm not mistaken,
this fellow was a chief.

It was a waste of strength,
a needless risk
for you
to save him,
pack him back here.

but,
damn the whole Greaser outfit generally,
I'm glad you did!"
Gale remembered then
to speak of his concern
for Ladd.

"Laddy didn't go out
to meet you,"
replied Belding.

"I knew you were due in any day,
and,
as there's been trouble between here and Casita,
I sent him that way.

Since you've been out our friend Carter lost a bunch of horses and a few steers.

Did you get a good look at the horses those raiders had at Papago Well?"
Dick had learned,
since he had become a ranger,
to see everything
with keen,
sure,
photographic eye;
and,
being put
to the test so often required of him,
he described the horses as a dark-colored drove,
mostly bays and blacks,
with one spotted sorrel.

"Some of Carter's--sure as you're born!"
exclaimed Belding.

"His bunch has been split up,
divided among several bands of raiders.

He has a grass ranch up here in Three Mile Arroyo.

It's a good long ride in U.

S.

territory from the border."

"Those horses I saw will go home,
don't you think?"
asked Dick.

"Sure.

They can't be caught or stopped."

"Well,
what shall I do now?"
"Stay here and rest,"
bluntly replied Belding.

"You need it.

Let the women fuss over you--doctor you a little.

When Jim gets back from Sonoyta I'll know more about what we ought
to do.

By Lord! it seems our job now isn't keeping Japs and Chinks out of the U.

S.

It's keeping our property from going into Mexico."

"Are there any letters
for me?"
asked Gale.

"Letters! Say,
my boy,
it'd take something pretty important
to get me or any man here back Casita way.

If the town is safe these days the road isn't.

It's a month now since any one went
to Casita."

Gale had received several letters from his sister Elsie,
the last of which he had not answered.

There had not been much opportunity
for writing on his infrequent returns
to Forlorn River;
and,
besides,
Elsie had written that her father had stormed over what he considered Dick's falling into wild and evil ways.

"Time flies,"
said Dick.

"George Thorne will be free before long,
and he'll be coming out.

I wonder if he'll stay here or try
to take Mercedes away?"
"Well,
he'll stay right here in Forlorn River,
if I have any say,"
replied Belding.

"I'd like
to know how he'd ever get that Spanish girl out of the country now,
with all the trails overrun by rebels and raiders.

It'd be hard
to disguise her.

Say,
Dick,
maybe we can get Thorne
to stay here.

You know,
since you've discovered the possibility of a big water supply,
I've had dreams of a future
for Forlorn River....If only this war was over! Dick,
that's what it is--war--scattered war along the northern border of Mexico from gulf
to gulf.

What if it isn't our war?

We're on the fringe.

No,
we can't develop Forlorn River until there's peace."

The discovery that Belding alluded
to was one that might very well lead
to the making of a wonderful and agricultural district of Altar Valley.

While in college Dick Gale had studied engineering,
but he had not set the scientific world afire
with his brilliance.

Nor after leaving college had he been able
to satisfy his father that he could hold a job.

Nevertheless,
his smattering of engineering skill bore fruit in the last place on earth where anything might have been expected of it--in the desert.

Gale had always wondered about the source of Forlorn River.

No white man or Mexican,
or,
so far as known,
no Indian,
had climbed those mighty broken steps of rock called No Name Mountains,
from which Forlorn River was supposed
to come.

Gale had discovered a long,
narrow,
rock-bottomed and rock-walled gulch that could be dammed at the lower end by the dynamiting of leaning cliffs above.

An inexhaustible supply of water could be stored there.

Furthermore,
he had worked out an irrigation plan
to bring the water down
for mining uses,
and
to make a paradise out of that part of Altar Valley which lay in the United States.

Belding claimed there was gold in the arroyos,
gold in the gulches,
not in quantities
to make a prospector rejoice,
but enough
to work for.

And the soil on the higher levels of Altar Valley needed only water
to make it grow anything the year round.

Gale,
too,
had come
to have dreams of a future
for Forlorn River.

On the afternoon of the following day Ladd unexpectedly appeared leading a lame and lathered horse into the yard.

Belding and Gale,
who were at work at the forge,
looked up and were surprised out of speech.

The legs of the horse were raw and red,
and he seemed about
to drop.

Ladd's sombrero was missing;
he wore a bloody scarf round his head;
sweat and blood and dust had formed a crust on his face;
little streams of powdery dust slid from him;
and the lower half of his scarred chaps were full of broken white thorns.

"Howdy,
boys,"
he drawled.

"I shore am glad
to see you all."

"Where'n hell's your hat?"
demanded Belding,
furiously.

It was a ridiculous greeting.

But Belding's words signified little.

The dark shade of worry and solicitude crossing his face told more than his black amaze.

The ranger stopped unbuckling the saddle girths,
and,
looking at Belding,
broke into his slow,
cool laugh.

"Tom,
you recollect that whopper of a saguaro up here where Carter's trail branches off the main trail
to Casita?

Well,
I climbed it an'
left my hat on top
for a woodpecker's nest."

"You've been running--fighting?"
queried Belding,
as if Ladd had not spoken at all.

"I reckon it'll dawn on you after a while,"
replied Ladd,
slipping the saddle.

"Laddy,
go in the house
to the women,"
said Belding.

"I'll tend
to your horse."

"Shore,
Tom,
in a minute.

I've been down the road.

An'
I found hoss tracks an'
steer tracks goin'
across the line.

But I seen no sign of raiders till this mornin'.

Slept at Carter's last night.

That raid the other day cleaned him out.

He's shootin'
mad.

Well,
this mornin'
I rode plumb into a bunch of Carter's hosses,
runnin'
wild
for home.

Some Greasers were tryin'
to head them round an'
chase them back across the line.

I rode in between an'
made matters embarrassin'.

Carter's hosses got away.

Then me an'
the Greasers had a little game of hide an'
seek in the cactus.

I was on the wrong side,
an'
had
to break through their line
to head toward home.

We run some.

But I had a closer call than I'm stuck on havin'."

"Laddy,
you wouldn't have any such close calls if you'd ride one of my horses,"
expostulated Belding.

"This broncho of yours can run,
and Lord knows he's game.

But you want a big,
strong horse,
Mexican bred,
with cactus in his blood.

Take one of the bunch--Bull,
White Woman,
Blanco Jose."

"I had a big,
fast horse a while back,
but I lost him,"
said Ladd.

"This bronch ain't so bad.

Shore Bull an'
that white devil
with his Greaser name--they could run down my bronch,
kill him in a mile of cactus.

But,
somehow,
Tom,
I can't make up my mind
to take one of them grand white hosses.

Shore I reckon I'm kinda soft.

An'
mebbe I'd better take one before the raiders clean up Forlorn River."

Belding cursed low and deep in his throat,
and the sound resembled muttering thunder.

The shade of anxiety on his face changed
to one of dark gloom and passion.

Next
to his wife and daughter there was nothing so dear
to him as those white horses.

His father and grandfather--all his progenitors of whom he had trace--had been lovers of horses.

It was in Belding's blood.

"Laddy,
before it's too late can't I get the whites away from the border?"
"Mebbe it ain't too late;
but where can we take them??

"To San Felipe?"
"No.

We've more chance
to hold them here.?

"To Casita and the railroad?"
"Afraid
to risk gettin'
there.

An'
the town's full of rebels who need hosses."

"Then straight north?"
"Shore man,
you're crazy.

Ther's no water,
no grass
for a hundred miles.

I'll tell you,
Tom,
the safest plan would be
to take the white bunch south into Sonora,
into some wild mountain valley.

Keep them there till the raiders have traveled on back east.

Pretty soon there won't be any rich pickin'
left
for these Greasers.

An'
then they'll ride on
to new ranges."

"Laddy,
I don't know the trails into Sonora.

An'
I can't trust a Mexican or a Papago.

Between you and me,
I'm afraid of this Indian who herds
for me."

"I reckon we'd better stick here,
Tom....Dick,
it's some good
to see you again.

But you seem kinda quiet.

Shore you get quieter all the time.

Did you see any sign of Jim out Sonoyta way?"
Then Belding led the lame horse toward the watering-trough,
while the two rangers went toward the house,
Dick was telling Ladd about the affair at Papago Well when they turned the corner under the porch.

Nell was sitting in the door.

She rose
with a little scream and came flying toward them.

"Now I'll get it,"
whispered Ladd.

"The women'll make a baby of me.

An'
shore I can't help myself."

"Oh,
Laddy,
you've been hurt!"
cried Nell,
as
with white cheeks and dilating eyes she ran
to him and caught his arm.

"Nell,
I only run a thorn in my ear."

"Oh,
Laddy,
don't lie! You've lied before.

I know you're hurt.

Come in
to mother."

"Shore,
Nell,
it's only a scratch.

My bronch throwed me."

"Laddy,
no horse every threw you."

The girl's words and accusing eyes only hurried the ranger on
to further duplicity.

"Mebbe I got it when I was ridin'
hard under a mesquite,
an'
a sharp snag--"
"You've been shot!...Mama,
here's Laddy,
and he's been shot!....Oh,
these dreadful days we're having! I can't bear them! Forlorn River used
to be so safe and quiet.

Nothing happened.

But now! Jim comes home
with a bloody hole in him--then Dick--then Laddy!....Oh,
I'm afraid some day they'll never come home."

The morning was bright,
still,
and clear as crystal.

The heat waves had not yet begun
to rise from the desert.

A soft gray,
white,
and green tint perfectly blended lay like a mantle over mesquite and sand and cactus.

The canyons of distant mountain showed deep and full of lilac haze.

Nell sat perched high upon the topmost bar of the corral gate.

Dick leaned beside her,
now
with his eyes on her face,
now gazing out into the alfalfa field where Belding's thoroughbreds grazed and pranced and romped and whistled.

Nell watched the horses.

She loved them,
never tired of watching them.

But her gaze was too consciously averted from the yearning eyes that tried
to meet hers
to be altogether natural.

A great fenced field of dark velvety green alfalfa furnished a rich background
for the drove of about twenty white horses.

Even without the horses the field would have presented a striking contrast
to the surrounding hot,
glaring blaze of rock and sand.

Belding had bred a hundred or more horses from the original stock he had brought up from Durango.

His particular interest was in the almost unblemished whites,
and these he had given especial care.

He made a good deal of money selling this strain
to friends among the ranchers back in Texas.

No mercenary consideration,
however,
could have made him part
with the great,
rangy white horses he had gotten from the Durango breeder.

He called them Blanco Diablo
(White Devil),
Blanco Sol
(White Sun),
Blanca Reina
(White Queen),
Blanca Mujer
(White Woman),
and El Gran Toro Blanco
(The Big White Bull).

Belding had been laughed at by ranchers
for preserving the sentimental Durango names,
and he had been unmercifully ridiculed by cowboys.

The the names had never been changed.

Blanco Diablo was the only horse in the field that was not free
to roam and graze where he listed.

A stake and a halter held him
to one corner,
where he was severely let alone by the other horses.

He did not like this isolation.

Blanco Diablo was not happy unless he was running,
or fighting a rival.

Of the two he would rather fight.

If anything white could resemble a devil,
this horse surely did.

He had nothing beautiful about him,
yet he drew the gaze and held it.

The look of him suggested discontent,
anger,
revolt,
viciousness.

When he was not grazing or prancing,
he held his long,
lean head level,
pointing his nose and showing his teeth.

Belding's favorite was almost all the world
to him,
and he swore Diablo could stand more heat and thirst and cactus than any other horse he owned,
and could run down and kill any horse in the Southwest.

The fact that Ladd did not agree
with Belding on these salient points was a great disappointment,
and also a perpetual source
for argument.

Ladd and Lash both hated Diablo;
and Dick Gale,
after one or two narrow escapes from being brained,
had inclined
to the cowboys'
side of the question.

El Gran Toro Blanco upheld his name.

He was a huge,
massive,
thick-flanked stallion,
a kingly mate
for his full-bodied,
glossy consort,
Blanca Reina.

The other mare,
Blanca Mujer,
was dazzling white,
without a spot,
perfectly pointed,
racy,
graceful,
elegant,
yet carrying weight and brawn and range that suggested her relation
to her forebears.

The cowboys admitted some of Belding's claims
for Diablo,
but they gave loyal and unshakable allegiance
to Blanco Sol.

As
for Dick,
he had
to fight himself
to keep out of arguments,
for he sometimes imagined he was unreasonable about the horse.

Though he could not understand himself,
he knew he loved Sol as a man loved a friend,
a brother.

Free of heavy saddle and the clumsy leg shields,
Blanco Sol was somehow all-satisfying
to the eyes of the rangers.

As long and big as Diablo was,
Sol was longer and bigger.

Also,
he was higher,
more powerful.

He looked more a thing
for action--speedier.

At a distance the honorable scars and lumps that marred his muscular legs were not visible.

He grazed aloof from the others,
and did not cavort nor prance;
but when he lifted his head
to whistle,
how wild he appeared,
and proud and splendid! The dazzling whiteness of the desert sun shone from his coat;
he had the fire and spirit of the desert in his noble head,
its strength and power in his gigantic frame.

"Belding swears Sol never beat Diablo,"
Dick was saying.

"He believes it,"
replied Nell.

"Dad is queer about that horse."

"But Laddy rode Sol once--made him beat Diablo.

Jim saw the race."

Nell laughed.

"I saw it,
too.

For that matter,
even I have made Sol put his nose before Dad's favorite."

"I'd like
to have seen that.

Nell,
aren't you ever going
to ride
with me?"
"Some day--when it's safe."

"Safe!"
"I--I mean when the raiders have left the border."

"Oh,
I'm glad you mean that,"
said Dick,
laughing.

"Well,
I've often wondered how Belding ever came
to give Blanco Sol
to me."

"He was jealous.

I think he wanted
to get rid of Sol."

"No?

Why,
Nell,
he'd give Laddy or Jim one of the whites any day."

"Would he?

Not Devil or Queen or White Woman.

Never in this world! But Dad has lots of fast horses the boys could pick from.

Dick,
I tell you Dad wants Blanco Sol
to run himself out--lose his speed on the desert.

Dad is just jealous
for Diablo."

"Maybe.

He surely has strange passion
for horses.

I think I understand better than I used to.

I owned a couple of racers once.

They were just animals
to me,
I guess.

But Blanco Sol!"
"Do you love him?"
asked Nell;
and now a warm,
blue flash of eyes swept his face.

"Do I?

Well,
rather."

"I'm glad.

Sol has been finer,
a better horse since you owned him.

He loves you,
Dick.

He's always watching
for you.

See him raise his head.

That's
for you.

I know as much about horses as Dad or Laddy any day.

Sol always hated Diablo,
and he never had much use
for Dad."

Dick looked up at her.

"It'll be--be pretty hard
to leave Sol--when I go away."

Nell sat perfectly still.

"Go away?"
she asked,
presently,
with just the faintest tremor in her voice.

"Yes.

Sometimes when I get blue--as I am to-day--I think I'll go.

But,
in sober truth,
Nell,
it's not likely that I'll spend all my life here."

There was no answer
to this.

Dick put his hand softly over hers;
and,
despite her half-hearted struggle
to free it,
he held on.

"Nell!"
Her color fled.

He saw her lips part.

Then a heavy step on the gravel,
a cheerful,
complaining voice interrupted him,
and made him release Nell and draw back.

Belding strode into view round the adobe shed.

"Hey,
Dick,
that darned Yaqui Indian can't be driven or hired or coaxed
to leave Forlorn River.

He's well enough
to travel.

I offered him horse,
gun,
blanket,
grub.

But no go."

"That's funny,"
replied Gale,
with a smile.

"Let him stay--put him
to work"
"It doesn't strike me funny.

But I'll tell you what I think.

That poor,
homeles,
heartbroken Indian has taken a liking
to you,
Dick.

These desert Yaquis are strange folk.

I've heard strange stories about them.

I'd believe
'most anything.

And that's how I figure his case.

You saved his life.

That sort of thing counts big
with any Indian,
even
with an Apache.

With a Yaqui maybe it's of deep significance.

I've heard a Yaqui say that
with his tribe no debt
to friend or foe ever went unpaid.

Perhaps that's what ails this fellow."

"Dick,
don't laugh,"
said Nell.

"I've noticed the Yaqui.

It's pathetic the way his great gloomy eyes follow you."

"You've made a friend,"
continued Belding.

"A Yaqui could be a real friend on this desert.

If he gets his strength back he'll be of service
to you,
don't mistake me.

He's welcome here.

But you're responsible
for him,
and you'll have trouble keeping him from massacring all the Greasers in Forlorn River."

The probability of a visit from the raiders,
and a dash bolder than usual on the outskirts of a ranch,
led Belding
to build a new corral.

It was not sightly
to the eye,
but it was high and exceedingly strong.

The gate was a massive affair,
swinging on huge hinges and fastening
with heavy chains and padlocks.

On the outside it had been completely covered
with barb wire,
which would make it a troublesome thing
to work on in the dark.

At night Belding locked his white horses in this corral.

The Papago hersman slept in the adobe shed adjoining.

Belding did not imagine that any wooden fence,
however substantially built,
could keep determined raiders from breaking it down.

They would have
to take time,
however,
and make considerable noise;
and Belding relied on these facts.

Belding did not believe a band of night raiders would hold out against a hot rifle fire.

So he began
to make up some of the sleep he had lost.

It was noteworthy,
however,
that Ladd did not share Belding's sanguine hopes.

Jim Lash rode in,
reporting that all was well out along the line toward the Sonoyta Oasis.

Days passed,
and Belding kept his rangers home.

Nothing was heard of raiders at hand.

Many of the newcomers,
both American and Mexican,
who came
with wagons and pack trains from Casita stated that property and life were cheap back in that rebel-infested town.

One January morning Dick Gale was awakened by a shrill,
menacing cry.

He leaped up bewildered and frightened.

He heard Belding's booming voice answering shouts,
and rapid steps on flagstones.

But these had not awakened him.

Heavy breaths,
almost sobs,
seemed at his very door.

In the cold and gray dawn Dick saw something white.

Gun in hand,
he bounded across the room.

Just ouside his door stood Blanco Sol.

It was not unusual
for Sol
to come poking his head in at Dick's door during daylight.

But now in the early dawn,
when he had been locked in the corral,
it meant raiders--no less.

Dick called softly
to the snorting horse;
and,
hurriedly getting into clothes and boots,
he went out
with a gun in each hand.

Sol was quivering in every muscle.

Like a dog he followed Dick around the house.

Hearing shouts in the direction of the corrals,
Gale bent swift steps that way.

He caught up
with Jim Lash,
who was also leading a white horse.

"Hello,
Jim! Guess it's all over but the fireworks,"
said Dick.

"I cain't say just what has come off,"
replied Lash.

"I've got the Bull.

Found him runnin'
in the yard."

They reached the corral
to find Belding shaking,
roaring like a madman.

The gate was open,
the corral was empty.

Ladd stooped over the ground,
evidently trying
to find tracks.

"I reckon we might jest as well cool off an'
wait
for daylight,"
suggested Jim.

"Shore.

They've flown the coop,
you can gamble on that.

Tom,
where's the Papago?"
said Ladd.

"He's gone,
Laddy--gone!"
"Double-crossed us,
eh?

I see here's a crowbar lyin'
by the gatepost.

That Indian fetched it from the forge.

It was used
to pry out the bolts an'
steeples.

Tom,
I reckon there wasn't much time lost forcin'
that gate."

Belding,
in shirt sleeves and barefooted,
roared
with rage.

He said he had heard the horses running as he leaped out of bed.

"What woke you?"
asked Laddy.

"Sol.

He came whistling
for Dick.

Didn't you hear him before I called you?"
"Hear him! He came thunderin'
right under my window.

I jumped up in bed,
an'
when he let out that blast Jim lit square in the middle of the floor,
an'
I was scared stiff.

Dick,
seein'
it was your room he blew into,
what did you think?"
"I couldn't think.

I'm shaking yet,
Laddy."

"Boys,
I'll bet Sol spilled a few raiders if any got hands on him,"
said Jim.

"Now,
let's sit down an'
wait
for daylight.

It's my idea we'll find some of the hosses runnin'
loose.

Tom,
you go an'
get some clothes on.

It's freezin'
cold.

An'
don't forget
to tell the women folks we're all right."

Daylight made clear some details of the raid.

The cowboys found tracks of eight raiders coming up from the river bed where their horses had been left.

Evidently the Papago had been false
to his trust.

He few personal belongings were gone.

Lash was correct in his idea of finding more horses loose in the fields.

The men soon rounded up eleven of the whites,
all more or less frightened,
and among the number were Queen and Blanca Mujer.

The raiders had been unable
to handle more than one horse
for each man.

It was bitter irony of fate that Belding should lose his favorite,
the one horse more dear
to him than all the others.

Somewhere out on the trail a raider was fighting the iron-jawed savage Blanco Diablo.

"I reckon we're some lucky,"
observed Jim Lash.

"Lucky ain't enough word,"
replied Ladd.

"You see,
it was this way.

Some of the raiders piled over the fence while the others worked on the gate.

Mebbe the Papago went inside
to pick out the best hosses.

But it didn't work except
with Diablo,
an'
how they ever got him I don't know.

I'd have gambled it'd take all of eight men
to steal him.

But Greasers have got us skinned on handlin'
hosses."

Belding was unconsolable.

He cursed and railed,
and finally declared he was going
to trail the raiders.

"Tom,
you just ain't agoin'
to do nothin'
of the kind,"
said Ladd coolly.

Belding groaned and bowed his head.

"Laddy,
you're right,"
he replied,
presently.

"I've got
to stand it.

I can't leave the women and my property.

But it's sure tough.

I'm sore way down deep,
and nothin'
but blood would ever satisfy me."

"Leave that
to me an'
Jim,"
said Ladd.

"What do you mean
to do?"
demanded Belding,
starting up.

"Shore I don't know yet....Give me a light
for my pipe.

An'
Dick,
go fetch out your Yaqui."

VIII The Running of Blanco Sol The Yaqui's strange dark glance roved over the corral,
the swinging gate
with its broken fastenings,
the tracks in the road,
and then rested upon Belding.

"Malo,"
he said,
and his Spanish was clear.

"Shore Yaqui,
about eight bad men,
an'
a traitor Indian,"
said Ladd.

"I think he means my herder,"
added Belding.

"If he does,
that settles any doubt it might be decent
to have--Yaqui--malo Papago--Si?"
The Yaqui spread wide his hands.

Then he bent over the tracks in the road.

They led everywhither,
but gradually he worked out of the thick net
to take the trail that the cowboys had followed down
to the river.

Belding and the rangers kept close at his heels.

Occasionally Dick lent a helping hand
to the still feeble Indian.

He found a trampled spot where the raiders had left their horses.

From this point a deeply defined narrow trail led across the dry river bed.

Belding asked the Yaqui where the raiders would head
for in the Sonora Desert.

For answer the Indian followed the trail across the streem of sand,
through willows and mesquite,
up
to the level of rock and cactus.

At this point he halted.

A sand-filled,
almost obliterated trail led off
to the left,
and evidently went round
to the east of No Name Mountains.

To the right stretched the road toward Papago Well and the Sonoyta Oasis.

The trail of the raiders took a southeasterly course over untrodden desert.

The Yaqui spoke in his own tongue,
then in Spanish.

"Think he means slow march,"
said Belding.

"Laddy,
from the looks of that trail the Greasers are having trouble
with the horses."

"Tom,
shore a boy could see that,"
replied Laddy
"Ask Yaqui
to tell us where the raiders are headin',
an'
if there's water."

It was wonderful
to see the Yaqui point.

His dark hand stretched,
he sighted over his stretched finger at a low white escarpment in the distance.

Then
with a stick he traced a line in the sand,
and then at the end of that another line at right angles.

He made crosses and marks and holes,
and as he drew the rude map he talked in Yaqui,
in Spanish;
with a word here and there in English.

Belding translated as best he could.

The raiders were heading southeast toward the railroad that ran from Nogales down into Sonora.

It was four days'
travel,
bad trail,
good sure waterhole one day out;
then water not sure
for two days.

Raiders traveling slow;
bothered by too many horses,
not looking
for pursuit;
were never pursued,
could be headed and ambushed that night at the first waterhole,
a natural trap in a valley.

The men returned
to the ranch.

The rangers ate and drank while making hurried preparations
for travel.

Blanco Sol and the cowboys'
horses were fed,
watered,
and saddled.

Ladd again refused
to ride one of Belding's whites.

He was quick and cold.

"Get me a long-range rifle an'
lots of shells.

Rustle now,"
he said.

"Laddy,
you don't want
to be weighted down?"
protested Belding.

"Shore I want a gun that'll outshoot the dinky little carbines an'
muskets used by the rebels.

Trot one out an'
be quick."

"I've got a .405,
a long-barreled heavy rifle that'll shoot a mile.

I use it
for mountain sheep.

But Laddy,
it'll break that bronch's back."

"His back won't break so easy....Dick,
take plenty of shells
for your Remington.

An'
don't forget your field glass."

In less than an hour after the time of the raid the three rangers,
heavily armed and superbly mounted on fresh horses,
rode out on the trail.

As Gale turned
to look back from the far bank of Forlorn River,
he saw Nell waving a white scarf.

He stood high in his stirrups and waved his sombrero.

Then the mesquites hid the girl's slight figure,
and Gale wheeled grim-faced
to follow the rangers.

They rode in single file
with Ladd in the lead.

He did not keep
to the trail of the raiders all the time.

He made short cuts.

The raiders were traveling leisurely,
and they evinced a liking
for the most level and least cactus-covered stretches of ground.

But the cowboy took a bee-line course
for the white escarpment pointed out by the Yaqui;
and nothing save deep washes and impassable patches of cactus or rocks made him swerve from it.

He kept the broncho at a steady walk over the rougher places and at a swinging Indian canter over the hard and level ground.

The sun grew hot and the wind began
to blow.

Dust clouds rolled along the blue horizon.

Whirling columns of sand,
like water spouts at sea,
circled up out of white arid basins,
and swept away and spread aloft before the wind.

The escarpment began
to rise,
to change color,
to show breaks upon it rocky face.

Whenever the rangers rode out on the brow of a knoll or ridge or an eminence,
before starting
to descend,
Ladd required of Gale a long,
careful,
sweeping survey of the desert ahead through the field glass.

There were streams of white dust
to be seen,
streaks of yellow dust,
trailing low clouds of sand over the glistening dunes,
but no steadily rising,
uniformly shaped puffs that would tell a tale of moving horses on the desert.

At noon the rangers got out of the thick cactus.

Moreover,
the gravel-bottomed washes,
the low weathering,
rotting ledges of yellow rock gave place
to hard sandy rolls and bare clay knolls.

The desert resembled a rounded hummocky sea of color.

All light shades of blue and pink and yellow and mauve were there dominated by the glaring white sun.

Mirages glistened,
wavered,
faded in the shimmering waves of heat.

Dust as fine as power whiffed up from under the tireless hoofs.

The rangers rode on and the escarpment began
to loom.

The desert floor inclined perceptibly upward.

When Gale got an unobstructed view of the slope of the escarpment he located the raiders and horses.

In another hour's travel the rangers could see
with naked eyes a long,
faint moving streak of black and white dots.

"They're headin'
for that yellow pass,"
said Ladd,
pointing
to a break in the eastern end of the escarpment.

"When they get out of sight we'll rustle.

I'm thinkin'
that waterhole the Yaqui spoke of lays in the pass."

The rangers traveled swiftly over the remaining miles of level desert leading
to the ascent of the escarpment.

When they achieved the gateway of the pass the sun was low in the west.

Dwarfed mesquite and greasewood appeared among the rocks.

Ladd gave the word
to tie up horses and go forward on foot.

The narrow neck of the pass opened and descended into a valley half a mile wide,
perhaps twice that in length.

It had apparently unscalable slopes of weathered rock leading up
to beetling walls.

With floor bare and hard and white,
except
for a patch of green mesquite near the far end it was a lurid and desolate spot,
the barren bottom of a desert bowl.

"Keep down,
boys"
said Ladd.

"There's the waterhole an'
hosses have sharp eyes.

Shore the Yaqui figgered this place.

I never seen its like
for a trap."

Both white and black horses showed against the green,
and a thin curling column of blue smoke rose lazily from amid the mesquites.

"I reckon we'd better wait till dark,
or mebbe daylight,"
said Jim Lash.

"Let me figger some.

Dick,
what do you make of the outlet
to this hole?

Looks rough
to me."

With his glass Gale studied the narrow construction of walls and roughened rising floor.

"Laddy,
it's harder
to get out at that end than here,"
he replied.

"Shore that's hard enough.

Let me have a look....Well,
boys,
it don't take no figgerin'
for this job.

Jim,
I'll want you at the other end blockin'
the pass when we're ready
to start."

"When'll that be?"
inquired Jim.

"Soon as it's light enough in the mornin'.

That Greaser outfit will hang till to-morrow.

There's no sure water ahead
for two days,
you remember."

"I reckon I can slip through
to the other end after dark,"
said Lash,
thoughtfully.

"It might get me in bad
to go round."

The rangers stole back from the vantage point and returned
to their horses,
which they untied and left farther round among broken sections of cliff.

For the horses it was a dry,
hungry camp,
but the rangers built a fire and had their short though strengthening meal.

The location was high,
and through a break in the jumble of rocks the great colored void of desert could be seen rolling away endlessly
to the west.

The sun set,
and after it had gone down the golden tips of mountains dulled,
their lower shadows creeping upward.

Jim Lash rolled in his saddle blanket,
his feet near the fire,
and went
to sleep.

Ladd told Gale
to do likewise while he kept the fire up and waited until it was late enough
for Jim
to undertake circling round the raiders.

When Gale awakened the night was dark,
cold,
windy.

The stars shone
with white brilliance.

Jim was up saddling his horse,
and Ladd was talking low.

When Gale rose
to accompany them both rangers said he need not go.

But Gale wanted
to go because that was the thing Ladd or Jim would have done.

With Ladd leading,
they moved away into the gloom.

Advance was exceedingly slow,
careful,
silent.

Under the walls the blackness seemed impenetrable.

The horse was as cautious as his master.

Ladd did not lose his way,
nevertheless he wound between blocks of stone and clumps of mesquite,
and often tried a passage
to abandon it.

Finally the trail showed pale in the gloom,
and eastern stars twinkled between the lofty ramparts of the pass.

The advance here was still as stealthily made as before,
but not so difficult or slow.

When the dense gloom of the pass lightened,
and there was a wide space of sky and stars overhead,
Ladd halted and stood silent a moment.

"Luck again!"
he whispered.

"The wind's in your face,
Jim.

The horses won't scent you.

Go slow.

Don't crack a stone.

Keep close under the wall.

Try
to get up as high as this at the other end.

Wait till daylight before riskin'
a loose slope.

I'll be ridin'
the job early.

That's all."

Ladd's cool,
easy speech was scarcely significant of the perilous undertaking.

Lash moved very slowly away,
leading his horse.

The soft pads of hoofs ceased
to sound about the time the gray shape merged into the black shadows.

Then Ladd touched Dick's arm,
and turned back up the trail.

But Dick tarried a moment.

He wanted a fuller sense of that ebony-bottomed abyss,
with its pale encircling walls reaching up
to the dusky blue sky and the brilliant stars.

There was absolutely no sound.

He retraced his steps down,
soon coming up
with Ladd;
and together they picked a way back through the winding recesses of cliff.

The campfire was smoldering.

Ladd replenished it and lay down
to get a few hours'
sleep,
while Gale kept watch.

The after part of the night wore on till the paling of stars,
the thickening of gloom indicated the dark hour before dawn.

The spot was secluded from wind,
but the air grew cold as ice.

Gale spent the time stripping wood from a dead mesquite,
in pacing
to and fro,
in listening.

Blanco Sol stamped occasionally,
which sound was all that broke the stilliness.

Ladd awoke before the faintest gray appeared.

The rangers ate and drank.

When the black did lighten
to gray they saddled the horses and led them out
to the pass and down
to the point where they had parted
with Lash.

Here they awaited daylight.

To Gale it seemed long in coming.

Such a delay always aggravated the slow fire within him.

He had nothing of Ladd's patience.

He wanted action.

The gray shadow below thinned out,
and the patch of mesquite made a blot upon the pale valley.

The day dawned.

Still Ladd waited.

He grew more silent,
grimmer as the time of action approached.

Gale wondered what the plan of attack would be.

Yet he did not ask.

He waited ready
for orders.

The valley grew clear of gray shadow except under leaning walls on the eastern side.

Then a straight column of smoke rose from among the mesquites.

Manifestly this was what Ladd had been awaiting.

He took the long .405 from its sheath and tried the lever.

Then he lifted a cartridge belt from the pommel of his saddle.

Every ring held a shell and these shells were four inches long.

He buckled the belt round him.

"Come on,
Dick."

Ladd led the way down the slope until he reached a position that commanded the rising of the trail from a level.

It was the only place a man or horse could leave the valley
for the pass.

"Dick,
here's your stand.

If any raider rides in range take a crack at him....Now I want the lend of your hoss."

"Blanco Sol!"
exclaimed Gale,
more in amazement that Ladd should ask
for the horse than in reluctance
to lend him.

"Will you let me have him?"
Ladd repeated,
almost curtly.

"Certainly,
Laddy."

A smile momentarily chased the dark cold gloom that had set upon the ranger's lean face.

"Shore I appreciate it,
Dick.

I know how you care
for that hoss.

I guess mebbe Charlie Ladd has loved a hoss! An'
one not so good as Sol.

I was only tryin'
your nerve,
Dick,
askin'
you without tellin'
my plan.

Sol won't get a scratch,
you can gamble on that! I'll ride him down into the valley an'
pull the greasers out in the open.

They've got short-ranged carbines.

They can't keep out of range of the .405,
an'
I'll be takin'
the dust of their lead.

Sabe,
senor?"
"Laddy! You'll run Sol away from the raiders when they chase you?

Run him after them when they try
to get away?"
"Shore.

I'll run all the time.

They can't gain on Sol,
an'
he'll run them down when I want.

Can you beat it?"
"No.

It's great!...But suppose a raider comes out on Blanco Diablo?"
"I reckon that's the one weak place in my plan.

I'm figgerin'
they'll never think of that till it's too late.

But if they do,
well,
Sol can outrun Diablo.

An'
I can always kill the white devil!"
Ladd's strange hate of the horse showed in the passion of his last words,
in his hardening jaw and grim set lips.

Gale's hand went swiftly
to the ranger's shoulder.

"Laddy.

Don't kill Diablo unless it's
to save your life."

"All right.

But,
by God,
if I get a chance I'll make Blanco Sol run him off his legs!"
He spoke no more and set about changing the length of Sol's stirrups.

When he had them adjusted
to suit he mounted and rode down the trail and out upon the level.

He rode leisurely as if merely going
to water his horse.

The long black rifle lying across his saddle,
however,
was ominous.

Gale securely tied the other horse
to a mesquite at hand,
and took a position behind a low rock over which he could easily see and shoot when necessary.

He imagined Jim Lash in a similar position at the far end of the valley blocking the outlet.

Gale had grown accustomed
to danger and the hard and fierce feelings peculiar
to it.

But the coming drama was so peculiarly different in promise from all he had experienced,
that he waited the moment of action
with thrilling intensity.

In him stirred long,
brooding wrath at these border raiders--affection
for Belding,
and keen desire
to avenge the outrages he had suffered--warm admiration
for the cold,
implacable Ladd and his absolute fearlessness,
and a curious throbbing interest in the old,
much-discussed and never-decided argument as
to whether Blanco Sol was fleeter,
stronger horse than Blanco Diablo.

Gale felt that he was
to see a race between these great rivals--the kind of race that made men and horses terrible.

Ladd rode a quarter of a mile out upon the flat before anything happened.

Then a whistle rent the still,
cold air.

A horse had seen or scented Blanco Sol.

The whistle was prolonged,
faint,
but clear.

It made the boood thrum in Gale's ears.

Sol halted.

His head shot up
with the old,
wild,
spirited sweep.

Gale leveled his glass at the patch of mesquites.

He saw the raiders running
to an open place,
pointing,
gesticulating.

The glass brought them so close that he saw the dark faces.

Suddenly they broke and fled back among the trees.

Then he got only white and dark gleams of moving bodies.

Evidently that moment was one of boots,
guns,
and saddles
for the raiders.

Lowering the glass,
Gale saw that Blanco Sol had started forward again.

His gait was now a canter,
and he had covered another quarter of a mile before horses and raiders appeared upon the outskirts of the mesquites.

Then Blanco Sol stopped.

His shrill,
ringing whistle came distinctly
to Gale's ears.

The raiders were mounted on dark horses,
and they stood abreast in a motionless line.

Gale chuckled as he appreciated what a puzzle the situation presented
for them.

A lone horseman in the middle of the valley did not perhaps seem so menacing himself as the possibilities his presence suggested.

Then Gale saw a raider gallop swiftly from the group toward the farther outlet of the valley.

This might have been owing
to characteristic cowardice;
but it was more likely a move of the raiders
to make sure of retreat.

Undoubtedly Ladd saw this galloping horseman.

A few waiting moments ensued.

The galloping horseman reached the slope,
began
to climb.

With naked eyes Gale saw a puff of white smoke spring out of the rocks.

Then the raider wheeled his plunging horse back
to the level,
and went racing wildly down the valley.

The compact bunch of bays and blacks seemed
to break apart and spread rapidly from the edge of the mesquites.

Puffs of white smoke indicated firing,
and showed the nature of the raiders'
excitement.

They were far out of ordinary range,
but they spurred toward Ladd,
shooting as they rode.

Ladd held his ground;
the big white horse stood like a rock in his tracks.

Gale saw little spouts of dust rise in front of Blanco Sol and spread swift as sight
to his rear.

The raiders'
bullets,
striking low,
were skipping along the hard,
bare floor of the valley.

Then Ladd raised the long rifle.

There was no smoke,
but three high,
spanging reports rang out.

A gap opened in the dark line of advancing horsemen;
then a riderless steed sheered off
to the right.

Blanco Sol seemed
to turn as on a pivot and charged back toward the lower end of the valley.

He circled over
to Gale's right and stretched out into his run.

There were now five raiders in pursuit,
and they came sweeping down,
yelling and shooting,
evidently sure of their quarry.

Ladd reserved his fire.

He kept turning from back
to front in his saddle.

Gale saw how the space widened between pursuers and pursued,
saw distinctly when Ladd eased up Sol's running.

Manifestly Ladd intended
to try
to lead the raiders round in front of Gale's position,
and,
presently,
Gale saw he was going
to succeed.

The raiders,
riding like vaqueros,
swept on in a curve,
cutting off what distance they could.

One fellow,
a small,
wiry rider,
high on his mount's neck like a jockey,
led his companions by many yards.

He seemed
to be getting the range of Ladd,
or else he shot high,
for his bullets did not strike up the dust behind Sol.

Gale was ready
to shoot.

Blanco Sol pounded by,
his rapid,
rhythmic hoofbeats plainly
to be heard.

He was running easily.

Gale tried
to still the jump of heart and pulse,
and turned his eye again on the nearest pursuer.

This raider was crossing in,
his carbine held muzzle up in his right hand,
and he was coming swiftly.

It was a long shot,
upward of five hundred yards.

Gale had not time
to adjust the sights of the Remington,
but he knew the gun and,
holding coarsely upon the swiftly moving blot,
he began
to shoot.

The first bullet sent up a great splash of dust beneath the horse's nose,
making him leap as if
to hurdle a fence.

The rifle was automatic;
Gale needed only
to pull the trigger.

He saw now that the raiders behind were in line.

Swiftly he worked the trigger.

Suddenly the leading horse leaped convulsively,
not up nor aside,
but straight ahead,
and then he crashed
to the ground throwing his rider like a catapult,
and then slid and rolled.

He half got up,
fell back,
and kicked;
but his rider never moved.

The other rangers sawed the reins of plunging steeds and whirled
to escape the unseen battery.

Gale slipped a fresh clip into the magazine of his rifle.

He restrained himself from useless firing and gave eager eye
to the duel below.

Ladd began
to shoot while Sol was running.

The .405 rang out sharply--then again.

The heavy bullets streaked the dust all the way across the valley.

Ladd aimed deliberately and pulled slowly,
unmindful of the kicking dust-puffs behind Sol,
and
to the side.

The raiders spurred madly in pursuit,
loading and firing.

They shot ten times while Ladd shot once,
and all in vain;
and on Ladd's sixth shot a raider topped backward,
threw his carbine and fell
with his foot catching in a stirrup.

The frightened horse plunged away,
dragging him in a path of dust.

Gale had set himself
to miss nothing of that fighting race,
yet the action passed too swiftly
for clear sight of all.

Ladd had emptied a magazine,
and now Blanco Sol quickened and lengthened his running stride.

He ran away from his pursuers.

Then it was that the ranger's ruse was divined by the raiders.

They hauled sharply up and seemed
to be conferring.

But that was a fatal mistake.

Blanco Sol was seen
to break his gait and slow down in several jumps,
then square away and stand stockstill.

Ladd fired at the closely grouped raiders.

An instant passed.

Then Gale heard the spat of a bullet out in front,
saw a puff of dust,
then heard the lead strike the rocks and go whining away.

And it was after this that one of the raiders fell prone from his saddle.

The steel-jacketed .405 had gone through him on its uninterrupted way
to hum past Gale's positon.

The remaining two raiders frantically spurred their horses and fled up the valley.

Ladd sent Sol after them.

It seemed
to Gale,
even though he realized his excitement,
that Blanco Sol made those horses seem like snails.

The raiders split,
one making
for the eastern outlet,
the other circling back of the mesquites.

Ladd kept on after the latter.

Then puffs of white smoke and rifle shots faintly crackling told Jim Lash's hand in the game.

However,
he succeeded only in driving the raider back into the valley.

But Ladd had turned the other horseman,
and now it appeared the two raiders were between Lash above on the stony slope and Ladd below on the level.

There was desperate riding on part of the raiders
to keep from being hemmed in closer.

Only one of them got away,
and he came riding
for life down under the eastern wall.

Blanco Sol settled into his graceful,
beautiful swing.

He gained steadily,
though he was far from extending himself.

By Gale's actual count the raider fired eight times in that race down the valley,
and all his bullets went low and wide.

He pitched the carbine away and lost all control in headlong flight.

Some few hundred rods
to the left of Gale the raider put his horse
to the weathered slope.

He began
to climb.

The horse was superb,
infinitely more courageous than his rider.

Zigzag they went up and up,
and when Ladd reached the edge of the slope they were high long the cracked and guttered rampart.

Once--twice Ladd raised the long rifle,
but each time he lowered it.

Gale divined that the ranger's restraint was not on account of the Mexican,
but
for that valiant and faithful horse.

Up and up he went,
and the yellow dust clouds rose,
and an avalanche rolled rattling and cracking down the slope.

It was beyond belief that a horse,
burdened or unburdened,
could find footing and hold it upon that wall of narrow ledges and inverted,
slanting gullies.

But he climbed on,
sure-footed as a mountain goat,
and,
surmounting the last rough steps,
he stood a moment silhouetted against the white sky.

Then he disappeared.

Ladd sat astride Blanco Sol gazing upward.

How the cowboy must have honored that raider's brave steed! Gale,
who had been too dumb
to shout the admiration he felt,
suddenly leaped up,
and his voice came
with a shriek:

"LOOK OUT,
LADDY!"
A big horse,
like a white streak,
was bearing down
to the right of the ranger.

Blanco Diablo! A matchless rider swung
with the horse's motion.

Gale was stunned.

Then he remembered the first raider,
the one Lash had shot at and driven away from the outlet.

This fellow had made
for the mesquite and had put a saddle on Belding's favorite.

In the heat of the excitement,
while Ladd had been intent upon the climbing horse,
this last raider had come down
with the speed of the wind straight
for the western outlet.

Perhaps,
very probably,
he did not know Gale was there
to block it;
and certainly he hoped
to pass Ladd and Blanco Sol.

A touch of the spur made Sol lunge forward
to head off the raider.

Diable was in his stride,
but the distance and angle favored Sol.

The raider had no carbine.

He held aloft a gun ready
to level it and fire.

He sat the saddle as if it were a stationary seat.

Gale saw Ladd lean down and drop the .405 in the sand.

He would take no chances of wounding Belding's best-loved horse.

Then Gale sat transfixed
with suspended breath watching the horses thundering toward him.

Blanco Diablo was speeding low,
fleet as an antelope,
fierce and terrible in his devilish action,
a horse
for war and blood and death.

He seemed unbeatable.

Yet
to see the magnificently running Blanco Sol was but
to court a doubt.

Gale stood spellbound.

He might have shot the raider;
but he never thought of such a thing.

The distance swiftly lessened.

Plain it was the raider could not make the opening ahead of Ladd.

He saw it and swerved
to the left,
emptying his six-shooter as he turned.

His dark face gleamed as he flashed by Gale.

Blanco Sol thundered across.

Then the race became straight away up the valley.

Diablo was cold and Sol was hot;
therein lay the only handicap and vantage.

It was a fleet,
beautiful,
magnificent race.

Gale thrilled and exulted and yelled as his horse settled into a steadily swifter run and began
to gain.

The dust rolled in a funnel-shaped cloud from the flying hoofs.

The raider wheeled
with gun puffing white,
and Ladd ducked low over the neck of his horse.

The gap between Diablo and Sol narrowed yard by yard.

At first it had been a wide one.

The raider beat his mount and spurred,
beat and spurred,
wheeled round
to shoot,
then bent forward again.

In his circle at the upper end of the valley he turned far short of the jumble of rocks.

All the devil that was in Blanco Diablo had its running on the downward stretch.

The strange,
cruel urge of bit and spur,
the crazed rider who stuck like a burr upon him,
the shots and smoke added terror
to his natural violent temper.

He ran himself off his feet.

But he could not elude that relentless horse behind him.

The running of Blanco Sol was that of a sure,
remorseless driving power--steadier--stronger--swifter
with every long and wonderful stride.

The raider tried
to sheer Diablo off closer under the wall,
to make the slope where his companion had escaped.

But Diablo was uncontrollable.

He was running wild,
with breaking gait.

Closer and closer crept that white,
smoothly gliding,
beautiful machine of speed.

Then,
like one white flash following another,
the two horses gleamed down the bank of a wash and disappeared in clouds of dust.

Gale watched
with strained and smarting eyes.

The thick throb in his ears was pierced by faint sounds of gunshots.

Then he waited in almost unendurable suspense.

Suddenly something whiter than the background of dust appeared above the low roll of valley floor.

Gale leveled his glass.

In the clear circle shone Blanco Sol's noble head
with its long black bar from ears
to nose.

Sol's head was drooping now.

Another second showed Ladd still in the saddle.

The ranger was leading Blanco Diable--spent--broken--dragging --riderless.

IX An Interrupted Siesta No man ever had a more eloquent and beautiful pleader
for his cause than had Dick Gale in Mercedes Castaneda.

He peeped through the green,
shining twigs of the palo verde that shaded his door.

The hour was high noon,
and the patio was sultry.

The only sounds were the hum of bees in the flowers and the low murmur of the Spanish girl's melodious voice.

Nell lay in the hammock,
her hands behind her head,
with rosy cheeks and arch eyes.

Indeed,
she looked rebellious.

Certain it was,
Dick reflected,
that the young lady had fully recovered the wilful personality which had lain dormant
for a while.

Equally certain it seemed that Mercedes's earnestness was not apparently having the effect it should have had.

Dick was inclined
to be rebellious himself.

Belding had kept the rangers in off the line,
and therefore Dick had been idle most of the time,
and,
though he tried hard,
he had been unable
to stay far from Nell's vicinity.

He believed she cared
for him;
but he could not catch her alone long enough
to verify his tormenting hope.

When alone she was as illusive as a shadow,
as quick as a flash,
as mysterious as a Yaqui.

When he tried
to catch her in the garden or fields,
or corner her in the patio,
she eluded him,
and left behind a memory of dark-blue,
haunting eyes.

It was that look in her eyes which lent him hope.

At other times,
when it might have been possible
for Dick
to speak,
Nell clung closely
to Mercedes.

He had long before enlisted the loyal Mercedes in his cause;
but in spite of this Nell had been more than a match
for them both.

Gale pondered over an idea he had long revolved in mind,
and which now suddenly gave place
to a decision that made his heart swell and his cheek burn.

He peeped again through the green branches
to see Nell laughing at the fiery Mercedes.

"Qui'en sabe,"
he called,
mockingly,
and was delighted
with Nell's quick,
amazed start.

Then he went in search of Mrs. Belding,
and found her busy in the kitchen.

The relation between Gale and Mrs. Belding had subtly and incomprehensively changed.

He understood her less than when at first he divined an antagonism in her.

If such a thing were possible she had retained the antagonism while seeming
to yield
to some influence that must have been fondness
for him.

Gale was in no wise sure of her affection,
and he had long imagined she was afraid of him,
or of something that he represented.

He had gone on,
openly and fairly,
though discreetly,
with his rather one-sided love affair;
and as time passed he had grown less conscious of what had seemed her unspoken opposition.

Gale had come
to care greatly
for Nell's mother.

Not only was she the comfort and strength of her home,
but also of the inhabitants of Forlorn River.

Indian,
Mexican,
American were all the same
to her in trouble or illness;
and then she was nurse,
doctor,
peacemaker,
helper.

She was good and noble,
and there was not a child or grownup in Forlorn River who did not love and bless her.

But Mrs. Belding did not seem happy.

She was brooding,
intense,
deep,
strong,
eager
for the happiness and welfare of others;
and she was dominated by a worship of her daughter that was as strange as it was pathetic.

Mrs.Belding seldom smiled,
and never laughed.

There was always a soft,
sad,
hurt look in her eyes.

Gale often wondered if there had been other tragedy in her life than the supposed loss of her father in the desert.

Perhaps it was the very unsolved nature of that loss which made it haunting.

Mrs.Belding heard Dick's step as he entered the kitchen,
and,
looking up,
greeted him.

"Mother,"
began Dick,
earnestly.

Belding called her that,
and so did Ladd and Lash,
but it was the first time
for Dick.

"Mother --I want
to speak
to you."

The only indication Mrs. Belding gave of being started was in her eyes,
which darkened,
shadowed
with multiplying thought.

"I love Nell,"
went on Dick,
simply,
"and I want you
to let me ask her
to be my wife."

Mrs.Belding's face blanched
to a deathly white.

Gale,
thinking
with surprise and concern that she was going
to faint,
moved quickly toward her,
took her arm.

"Forgive me.

I was blunt....But I thought you knew."

"I've known
for a long time,"
replied Mrs. Belding.

Her voice was steady,
and there was no evidence of agitation except in her pallor.

"Then you--you haven't spoken
to Nell?"
Dick laughed.

"I've been trying
to get a chance
to tell her.

I haven't had it yet.

But she knows.

There are other ways besides speech.

And Mercedes has told her.

I hope,
I almost believe Nell cares a little
for me."

"I've known that,
too,
for a long time,"
said Mrs. Belding,
low almost as a whisper.

"You know!"
cried Dick,
with a glow and rush of feeling.

"Dick,
you must be very blind not
to see what has been plain
to all of us....I guess--it couldn't have been helped.

You're a splendid fellow.

No wonder she loves you."

"Mother! You'll give her
to me?"
She drew him
to the light and looked
with strange,
piercing intentness into his face.

Gale had never dreamed a woman's eyes could hold such a world of thought and feeling.

It seemed all the sweetness of life was there,
and all the pain.

"Do you love her?"
she asked.

"With all my heart."

"You want
to marry her?"
"Ah,
I want to! As much as I want
to live and work
for her."

"When would you marry her?"
"Why!...Just as soon as she will do it.

To-morrow!"
Dick gave a wild,
exultant little laugh.

"Dick Gale,
you want my Nell?

You love her just as she is--her sweetness--her goodness?

Just herself,
body and soul?...There's nothing could change you--nothing?"
"Dear Mrs. Belding,
I love Nell
for herself.

If she loves me I'll be the happiest of men.

There's absolutely nothing that could make any difference in me."

"But your people?

Oh,
Dick,
you come of a proud family.

I can tell.

I--I once knew a young man like you.

A few months can't change pride--blood.

Years can't change them.

You've become a ranger.

You love the adventure--the wild life.

That won't last.

Perhaps you'll settle down
to ranching.

I know you love the West.

But,
Dick,
there's your family--"
"If you want
to know anything about my family,
I'll tell you,"
interrupted Dick,
with strong feeling.

"I've not secrets about them or myself.

My future and happiness are Nell's
to make.

No one else shall count
with me."

"Then,
Dick--you may have her.

God--bless--you--both."

Mrs.Belding's strained face underwent a swift and mobile relaxation,
and suddenly she was weeping in strangely mingled happiness and bitterness.

"Why,
mother!"
Gale could say no more.

He did not comprehend a mood seemingly so utterly at variance
with Mrs. Belding's habitual temperament.

But he put his arm around her.

In another moment she had gained command over herself,
and,
kissing him,
she pushed him out of the door.

"There! Go tell her,
Dick...And have some spunk about it!"
Gale went thoughtfully back
to his room.

He vowed that he would answer
for Nell's happiness,
if he had the wonderful good fortune
to win her.

Then remembering the hope Mrs. Belding had given him,
Dick lost his gravity in a flash,
and something began
to dance and ring within him.

He simply could not keep his steps turned from the patio.

Every path led there.

His blood was throbbing,
his hopes mounting,
his spirit soaring.

He knew he had never before entered the patio
with that inspirited presence.

"Now
for some spunk!"
he said,
under his breath.

Plainly he meant his merry whistle and his buoyant step
to interrupt this first languorous stage of the siesta which the girls always took during the hot hours.

Nell had acquired the habit long before Mercedes came
to show how fixed a thing it was in the life of the tropics.

But neither girl heard him.

Mercedes lay under the palo verde,
her beautiful head dark and still upon a cushion.

Nell was asleep in the hammock.

There was an abandonment in her deep repose,
and a faint smile upon her face.

Her sweet,
red lips,
with the soft,
perfect curve,
had always fascinated Dick,
and now drew him irresistibly.

He had always been consumed
with a desire
to kiss her,
and now he was overwhelmed
with his opportunity.

It would be a terrible thing
to do,
but if she did not awaken at once-- No,
he would fight the temptation.

That would be more than spunk.

It would-- Suddenly an ugly green fly sailed low over Nell,
appeared about
to alight on her.

Noiselessly Dick stepped close
to the hammock bent under the tree,
and
with a sweep of his hand chased the intruding fly away.

But he found himself powerless
to straighten up.

He was close
to her--bending over her face--near the sweet lips.

The insolent,
dreaming smile just parted them.

Then he thought he was lost.

But she stirred--he feared she would awaken.

He had stepped back erect when she opened her eyes.

They were sleepy,
yet surprised until she saw him.

Then she was wide awake in a second,
bewildered,
uncertain.

"Why--you here?"
she asked,
slowly.

"Large as life!"
replied Dick,
with unusual gayety.

"How long have you been here?"
"Just got here this fraction of a second,"
he replied,
lying shamelessly.

It was evident that she did not know whether or not
to believe him,
and as she studied him a slow blush dyed her cheek.

"You are absolutely truthful when you say you just stepped there?"
"Why,
of course,"
answered Dick,
right glad he did not have
to lie about that.

"I thought--I was--dreaming,"
she said,
and evidently the sound of her voice reassured her.

"Yes,
you looked as if you were having pleasant dreams,"
replied Dick.

"So sorry
to wake you.

I can't see how I came
to do it,
I was so quiet.

Mercedes didn't wake.

Well,
I'll go and let you have your siesta and dreams."

But he did not move
to go.

Nell regarded him
with curious,
speculative eyes.

"Isn't it a lovely day?"
queried Dick.

"I think it's hot."

"Only ninety in the shade.

And you've told me the mercury goes
to one hundred and thirty in midsummer.

This is just a glorious golden day."

"Yesterday was finer,
but you didn't notice it."

"Oh,
yesterday was somewhere back in the past--the inconsequential past."

Nell's sleepy blue eyes opened a little wider.

She did not know what
to make of this changed young man.

Dick felt gleeful and tried hard
to keep the fact from becoming manifest.

"What's the inconsequential past?

You seem remarkably happy to-day."

"I certainly am happy.

Adios.

Pleasant dreams."

Dick turned away then and left the patio by the opening into the yard.

Nell was really sleepy,
and when she had fallen asleep again he would return.

He walked around
for a while.

Belding and the rangers were shoeing a broncho.

Yaqui was in the field
with the horses.

Blanco Sol grazed contently,
and now and then lifted his head
to watch.

His long ears went up at sight of his master,
and he whistled.

Presently Dick,
as if magnet-drawn,
retraced his steps
to the patio and entered noiselessly.

Nell was now deep in her siesta.

She was inert,
relaxed,
untroubled by dreams.

Her hair was damp on her brow.

Again Nell stirred,
and gradually awakened.

Her eyes unclosed,
humid,
shadowy,
unconscious.

They rested upon Dick
for a moment before they became clear and comprehensive.

He stood back fully ten feet from her,
and
to all outside appearances regarded her calmly.

"I've interrupted your siesta again,"
he said.

"Please forgive me.

I'll take myself off."

He wandered away,
and when it became impossible
for him
to stay away any longer he returned
to the patio.

The instant his glance rested upon Nell's face he divined she was feigning sleep.

The faint rose-blush had paled.

The warm,
rich,
golden tint of her skin had fled.

Dick dropped upon his knees and bent over her.

Though his blood was churning in his veins,
his breast laboring,
his mind whirling
with the wonder of that moment and its promise,
he made himself deliberate.

He wanted more than anything he had ever wanted in his life
to see if she would keep up that pretense of sleep and let him kiss her.

She must have felt his breath,
for her hair waved off her brow.

Her cheeks were now white.

Her breast swelled and sank.

He bent down closer--closer.

But he must have been maddeningly slow,
for as he bent still closer Nell's eyes opened,
and he caught a swift purple gaze of eyes as she whirled her head.

Then,
with a little cry,
she rose and fled.

Rojas No word from George Thorne had come
to Forlorn River in weeks.

Gale grew concerned over the fact,
and began
to wonder if anything serious could have happened
to him.

Mercedes showed a slow,
wearing strain.

Thorne's commission expired the end of January,
and if he could not get his discharge immediately,
he surely could obtain leave of absence.

Therefore,
Gale waited,
not without growing anxiety,
and did his best
to cheer Mercedes.

The first of February came bringing news of rebel activities and bandit operations in and around Casita,
but not a word from the cavalryman.

Mercedes became silent,
mournful.

Her eyes were great black windows of tragedy.

Nell devoted herself entirely
to the unfortunate girl;
Dick exerted himself
to persuade her that all would yet come well;
in fact,
the whole household could not have been kinder
to a sister or a daughter.

But their united efforts were unavailing.

Mercedes seemed
to accept
with fatalistic hopelessness a last and crowning misfortune.

A dozen times Gale declared he would ride in
to Casita and find out why they did not hear from Thorne;
however,
older and wiser heads prevailed over his impetuosity.

Belding was not sanguine over the safety of the Casita trail.

Refugees from there arrived every day in Forlorn River,
and if tales they told were true,
real war would have been preferable
to what was going on along the border.

Belding and the rangers and the Yaqui held a consultation.

Not only had the Indian become a faithful servant
to Gale,
but he was also of value
to Belding.

Yaqui had all the craft of his class,
and superior intelligence.

His knowledge of Mexicans was second only
to his hate of them.

And Yaqui,
who had been scouting on all the trails,
gave information that made Belding decide
to wait some days before sending any one
to Casita.

He required promises from his rangers,
particularly Gale,
not
to leave without his consent.

It was upon Gale's coming from this conference that he encountered Nell.

Since the interrupted siesta episode she had been more than ordinarily elusive,
and about all he had received from her was a tantalizing smile from a distance.

He got the impression now,
however,
that she had awaited him.

When he drew close
to her he was certain of it,
and he experienced more than surprise.

"Dick,"
she began,
hurriedly.

"Dad's not going
to send any one
to see about Thorne?"
"No,
not yet.

He thinks it best not to.

We all think so.

I'm sorry.

Poor Mercedes!"
"I knew it.

I tried
to coax him
to send Laddy or even Yaqui.

He wouldn't listen
to me.

Dick,
Mercedes is dying by inches.

Can't you see what ails her?

It's more than love or fear.

It's uncertainty--suspense.

Oh,
can't we find out
for her?"
"Nell,
I feel as badly as you about her.

I wanted
to ride in
to Casita.

Belding shut me up quick,
the last time."

Nell came close
to Gale,
clasped his arm.

There was no color in her face.

Her eyes held a dark,
eager excitement.

"Dick,
will you slip off without Dad's consent?

Risk it! Go
to Casita and find out what's happened
to Thorne--at least if he ever started
for Forlorn River?"
"No,
Nell,
I won't do that."

She drew away from him
with passionate suddenness.

"Are you afraid?"
This certainly was not the Nell Burton that Gale knew.

"No,
I'm not afraid,"
Gale replied,
a little nettled.

"Will you go--for my sake?"
Like lightning her mood changed and she was close
to him again,
hands on his,
her face white,
her whole presence sweetly alluring.

"Nell,
I won't disobey Belding,"
protested Gale.

"I won't break my word."

"Dick,
it'll not be so bad as that.

But--what if it is?...Go,
Dick,
if not
for poor Mercedes's sake,
then
for mine--to please me.

I'll--I'll...you won't lose anything by going.

I think I know how Mercedes feels.

Just a word from Thorne or about him would save her.

Take Blanco Sol and go,
Dick.

What rebel outfit could ever ride you down on that horse?

Why,
Dick,
if I was up on Sol I wouldn't be afraid of the whole rebel army."

"My dear girl,
it's not a question of being afraid.

It's my word--my duty
to Belding."

"You said you loved me.

If you love me you will go...You don't love me!"
Gale could only stare at this transformed girl.

"Dick,
listen!...If you go--if you fetch some word of Thorne
to comfort Mercedes,
you--well,
you will have your reward."

"Nell!"
Her dangerous sweetness was as amazing as this newly revealed character.

"Dick,
will you go?"
"No-no!"
cried Gale,
in violence,
struggling
with himself.

"Nell Burton,
I'll tell you this.

To have the reward I want would mean pretty hear heaven
for me.

But not even
for that will I break my word
to your father."

She seemed the incarnation of girlish scorn and wilful passion.

"Gracias,
senor,"
she replied,
mockingly.

"Adios."

Then she flashed out of his sight.

Gale went
to his room at once,
disturbed and thrilling,
and did not soon recover from that encounter.

The following morning at the breakfast table Nell was not present.

Mrs.Belding evidently considered the fact somewhat unusual,
for she called out into the patio and then into the yard.

Then she went
to Mercedes's room.

But Nell was not there,
either.

"She's in one of her tantrums lately,"
said Belding.

"Wouldn't speak
to me this morning.

Let her alone,
mother.

She's spoiled enough,
without running after her.

She's always hungry.

She'll be on hand presently,
don't mistake me."

Notwithstanding Belding's conviction,
which Gale shared,
Nell did not appear at all during the hour.

When Belding and the rangers went outside,
Yaqui was eating his meal on the bench where he always sat.

"Yaqui--Lluvia d'
oro,
si?"
asked Belding,
waving his hand toward the corrals.

The Indian's beautiful name
for Nell meant
"shower of gold,"
and Belding used it in asking Yaqui if he had seen her.

He received a negative reply.

Perhaps half an hour afterward,
as Gale was leaving his room,
he saw the Yaqui running up the path from the fields.

It was markedly out of the ordinary
to see the Indian run.

Gale wondered what was the matter.

Yaqui ran straight
to Belding,
who was at work at his bench under the wagon shed.

In less than a moment Belding was bellowing
for his rangers.

Gale got
to him first,
but Ladd and Lash were not far behind.

"Blanco Sol gone!"
yelled Belding,
in a rage.

"Gone?

In broad daylight,
with the Indian a-watch-in?"
queried Ladd.

"It happened while Yaqui was at breakfast.

That's sure.

He'd just watered Sol."

"Raiders!"
exclaimed Jim Lash.

"Lord only knows.

Yaqui says it wasn't raiders."

"Mebbe Sol's just walked off somewheres."

"He was haltered in the corral."

"Send Yaqui
to find the hoss's trail,
an'
let's figger,"
said Ladd.

"Shore this
's no raider job."

In the swift search that ensued Gale did not have anything
to say;
but his mind was forming a conclusion.

When he found his old saddle and bridle missing from the peg in the barn his conclusion became a positive conviction,
and it made him,
for the moment,
cold and sick and speechless.

"Hey,
Dick,
don't take it so much
to heart,"
said Belding.

"We'll likely find Sol,
and if we don't,
there's other good horses."

"I'm not thinking of Sol,"
replied Gale.

Ladd cast a sharp glance at Gale,
snapped his fingers,
and said:

"Damn me if I ain't guessed it,
too!"
"What's wrong
with you locoed gents?"
bluntly demanded Belding.

"Nell has slipped away on Sol,"
answered Dick.

There was a blank pause,
which presently Belding broke.

"Well,
that's all right,
if Nell's on him.

I was afraid we'd lost the horse."

"Belding,
you're trackin'
bad,"
said Ladd,
wagging his head.

"Nell has started
for Casita,"
burst out Gale.

"She has gone
to fetch Mercedes some word about Thorne.

Oh,
Belding,
you needn't shake your head.

I know she's gone.

She tried
to persuade me
to go,
and was furious when I wouldn't."

"I don't believe it,"
replied Belding,
hoarsely.

"Nell may have her temper.

She's a little devil at times,
but she always had good sense."

"Tom,
you can gamble she's gone,"
said Ladd.

"Aw,
hell,
no! Jim,
what do you think?"
implored Belding.

"I reckon Sol's white head is pointed level an'
straight down the Casita trail.

An'
Nell can ride.

We're losing'
time."

That roused Belding
to action.

"I say you're all wrong,"
he yelled,
starting
for the corrals.

"She's only taking a little ride,
same as she's done often.

But rustle now.

Find out.

Dick,
you ride cross the valley.

Jim,
you hunt up and down the river.

I'll head up San Felipe way.

And you,
Laddy,
take Diablo and hit the Casita trail.

If she really has gone after Thorne you can catch her in an hour or so."

"Shore I'll go,"
replied Ladd.

"but,
Beldin',
if you're not plumb crazy you're close
to it.

That big white devil can't catch Sol.

Not in an hour or a day or a week! What's more,
at the end of any runnin'
time,
with an even start,
Sol will be farther in the lead.

An'
now Sol's got an hour's start."

"Laddy,
you mean
to say Sol is a faster horse than Diablo?"
thundered Belding,
his face purple.

"Shore.

I mean
to tell you just that there,"
replied the ranger.

"I'll--I'll bet a--"
"We're wastin'
time,"
curtly interrupted Ladd.

"You can gamble on this if you want to.

I'll ride your Blanco Devil as he never was rid before,
'cept once when a damn sight better hossman than I am couldn't make him outrun Sol."

Without more words the men saddled and were off,
not waiting
for the Yaqui
to come in
with possible information as
to what trail Blanco Sol had taken.

It certainly did not show in the clear sand of the level valley where Gale rode
to and fro.

When Gale returned
to the house he found Belding and Lash awaiting him.

They did not mention their own search,
but stated that Yaqui had found Blanco Sol's tracks in the Casita trail.

After some consultation Belding decided
to send Lash along after Ladd.

The interminable time that followed contained
for Gale about as much suspense as he could well bear.

What astonished him and helped him greatly
to fight off actual distress was the endurance of Nell's mother.

Early on the morning of the second day,
Gale,
who had acquired an unbreakable habit of watching,
saw three white horses and a bay come wearily stepping down the road.

He heard Blanco Sol's familiar whistle,
and he leaped up wild
with joy.

The horse was riderless.

Gale's sudden joy received a violent check,
then resurged when he saw a limp white form in Jim Lash's arms.

Ladd was supporting a horseman who wore a military uniform.

Gale shouted
with joy and ran into the house
to tell the good news.

It was the ever-thoughtful Mrs. Belding who prevented him from rushing in
to tell Mercedes.

Then he hurried out into the yard,
closely followed by the Beldings.

Lash handed down a ragged,
travel-stained,
wan girl into Belding's arms.

"Dad! Mama!"
It was indeed a repentant Nell,
but there was spirit yet in the tired blue eyes.

Then she caught sight of Gale and gave him a faint smile.

"Hello--Dick."

"Nell!"
Gale reached
for her hand,
held it tightly,
and found speech difficult.

"You needn't worry--about your old horse,"
she said,
as Belding carried her toward the door.

"Oh,
Dick! Blanco Sol is--glorious!"
Gale turned
to greet his friend.

Indeed,
it was but a haggard ghost of the cavalryman.

Thorne looked ill or wounded.

Gale's greeting was also a question full of fear.

Thorne's answer was a faint smile.

He seemed ready
to drop from the saddle.

Gale helped Ladd hold Thorne upon the horse until they reached the house.

Belding came out again.

His welcome was checked as he saw the condition of the cavalryman.

Thorne reeled into Dick's arms.

But he was able
to stand and walk.

"I'm not--hurt.

Only weak--starved,"
he said.

"Is Mercedes-- Take me
to her."

"She'll be well the minute she sees him,"
averred Belding,
as he and Gale led the cavalryman
to Mercedes's room.

There they left him;
and Gale,
at least,
felt his ears ringing
with the girl's broken cry of joy.

When Belding and Gale hurried forth again the rangers were tending the tired horses.

Upon returning
to the house Jim Lash calmly lit his pipe,
and Ladd declared that,
hungry as he was,
he had
to tell his story.

"Shore,
Beldin',"
began Ladd,
"that was funny about Diablo catchin'
Blanco Sol.

Funny ain't the word.

I nearly laughed myself
to death.

Well,
I rode in Sol's tracks all the way
to Casita.

Never seen a rebel or a raider till I got
to town.

Figgered Nell made the trip in five hours.

I went straight
to the camp of the cavalrymen,
an'
found them just coolin'
off an'
dressin'
down their hosses after what looked
to me like a big ride.

I got there too late
for the fireworks.

"Some soldier took me
to an officer's tent.

Nell was there,
some white an'
all in.

She just said,
'Laddy!'
Thorne was there,
too,
an'
he was bein'
worked over by the camp doctor.

I didn't ask no questions,
because I seen quiet was needed round that tent.

After satisfying myself that Nell was all right,
an'
Thorne in no danger,
I went out.

"Shore there was so darn many fellers who wanted
to an'
tried
to tell me what'd come off,
I thought I'd never find out.

But I got the story piece by piece.

An'
here's what happened.

"Nell rode Blanco Sol a-tearin'
into camp,
an'
had a crowd round her in a jiffy.

She told who she was,
where she'd come from,
an'
what she wanted.

Well,
it seemed a day or so before Nell got there the cavalrymen had heard word of Thorne.

You see,
Thorne had left camp on leave of absence some time before.

He was shore mysterious,
they said,
an'
told nobody where he was goin'.

A week or so after he left camp some Greaser give it away that Rojas had a prisoner in a dobe shack near his camp.

Nobody paid much attention
to what the Greaser said.

He wanted money
for mescal.

An'
it was usual
for Rojas
to have prisoners.

But in a few more days it turned out pretty sure that
for some reason Rojas was holdin'
Thorne.

"Now it happened when this news came Colonel Weede was in Nogales
with his staff,
an'
the officer left in charge didn't know how
to proceed.

Rojas's camp was across the line in Mexico,
an'
ridin'
over there was serious business.

It meant a whole lot more than just scatterin'
one Greaser camp.

It was what had been botherin'
more'n one colonel along the line.

Thorne's feller soldiers was anxious
to get him out of a bad fix,
but they had
to wait
for orders.

"When Nell found out Thorne was bein'
starved an'
beat in a dobe shack no more'n two mile across the line,
she shore stirred up that cavalry camp.

Shore! She told them soldiers Rojas was holdin'
Thorne--torturin'
him
to make him tell where Mercedes was.

She told about Mercedes--how sweet an'
beautiful she was--how her father had been murdered by Rojas--how she had been hounded by the bandit--how ill an'
miserable she was,
waitin'
for her lover.

An'
she begged the cavalrymen
to rescue Thorne.

"From the way it was told
to me I reckon them cavalrymen went up in the air.

Fine,
fiery lot of young bloods,
I thought,
achin'
for a scrap.

But the officer in charge,
bein'
in a ticklish place,
still held out
for higher orders.

"Then Nell broke loose.

You-all know Nell's tongue is sometimes like a choya thorn.

I'd have give somethin'
to see her work up that soldier outfit.

Nell's never so pretty as when she's mad.

An'
this last stunt of hers was no girly tantrum,
as Beldin'
calls it.

She musta been ragin'
with all the hell there's in a woman....Can't you fellers see her on Blanco Sol
with her eyes turnin'
black?"
Ladd mopped his sweaty face
with his dusty scarf.

He was beaming.

He was growing excited,
hurried in his narrative.

"Right out then Nell swore she'd go after Thorne.

If them cavalrymen couldn't ride
with a Western girl
to save a brother American--let them hang back! One feller,
under orders,
tried
to stop Blanco Sol.

An'
that feller invited himself
to the hospital.

Then the cavalrymen went flyin'
for their hosses.

Mebbe Nell's move was just foxy--woman's cunnin'.

But I'm thinkin'
as she felt then she'd have sent Blanco Sol straight into Rojas's camp,
which,
I'd forgot
to say,
was in plain sight.

"It didn't take long
for every cavalryman in that camp
to get wind of what was comin'
off.

Shore they musta been wild.

They strung out after Nell in a thunderin'
troop.

"Say,
I wish you fellers could see the lane that bunch of hosses left in the greasewood an'
cactus.

Looks like there'd been a cattle stampede on the desert....Blanco Sol stayed out in front,
you can gamble on that.

Right into Rojas's camp! Sabe,
you senors?

Gawd Almighty! I never had grief that
'd hold a candle
to this one of bein'
too late
to see Nell an'
Sol in their one best race.

"Rojas an'
his men vamoosed without a shot.

That ain't surprisin'.

There wasn't a shot fired by anybody.

The cavalrymen soon found Thorne an'
hurried
with him back on Uncle Sam's land.

Thorne was half naked,
black an'
blue all over,
thin as a rail.

He looked mighty sick when I seen him first.

That was a little after midday.

He was given food an'
drink.

Shore he seemed a starved man.

But he picked up wonderful,
an'
by the time Jim came along he was wantin'
to start
for Forlorn River.

So was Nell.

By main strength as much as persuasion we kept the two of them quiet till next evenin'
at dark.

"Well,
we made as sneaky a start in the dark as Jim an'
me could manage,
an'
never hit the trail till we was miles from town.

Thorne's nerve held him up
for a while.

Then all at once he tumbled out of his saddle.

We got him back,
an'
Lash held him on.

Nell didn't give out till daybreak."

As Ladd paused in his story Belding began
to stutter,
and finally he exploded.

His mighty utterances were incoherent.

But plainly the wrath he had felt toward the wilful girl was forgotten.

Gale remained gripped by silence.

"I reckon you'll all be some surprised when you see Casita,"
went on Ladd.

"It's half burned an'
half tore down.

An'
the rebels are livin'
fat.

There was rumors of another federal force on the road from Case Grandes.

I seen a good many Americans from interior Mexico,
an'
the stories they told would make your hair stand up.

They all packed guns,
was fightin'
mad at Greasers,
an'
sore on the good old U.

S.

But shore glad
to get over the line! Some were waitin'
for trains,
which don't run reg'lar no more,
an'
others were ready
to hit the trails north."

"Laddy,
what knocks me is Rojas holding Thorne prisoner,
trying
to make him tell where Mercedes had been hidden,"
said Belding.

"Shore.

It
'd knock anybody."

"The bandit's crazy over her.

That's the Spanish of it,"
replied Belding,
his voice rolling.

"Rojas is a peon.

He's been a slave
to the proud Castilian.

He loves Mercedes as he hates her.

When I was down in Durango I saw something of these peons'
insane passions.

Rojas wants this girl only
to have her,
then kill her.

It's damn strange,
boys,
and even
with Thorne here our troubles have just begun."

"Tom,
you spoke correct,"
said Jim Ladd,
in his cool drawl.

"Shore I'm not sayin'
what I think,"
added Ladd.

But the look of him was not indicative of a tranquil optimism.

Thorne was put
to bed in Gale's room.

He was very weak,
yet he would keep Mercedes's hand and gaze at her
with unbelieving eyes.

Mercedes's failing hold on hope and strength seemed
to have been a fantasy;
she was again vivid,
magnetic,
beautiful,
shot through and through
with intense and throbbing life.

She induced him
to take food and drink.

Then,
fighting sleep
with what little strength he had left,
at last he succumbed.

For all Dick could ascertain his friend never stirred an eyelash nor a finger
for twenty-seven hours.

When he awoke he was pale,
weak,
but the old Thorne.

"Hello,
Dick;
I didn't dream it then,"
he said.

"There you are,
and my darling
with the proud,
dark eyes--she's here?"
"Why,
yes,
you locoed cavalryman."

"Say,
what's happened
to you?

It can't be those clothes and a little bronze on your face....Dick,
you're older--you've changed.

You're not so thickly built.

By Gad,
if you don't look fine!"
"Thanks.

I'm sorry I can't return the compliment.

You're about the seediest,
hungriest-looking fellow I ever saw....Say,
old man,
you must have had a tough time."

A dark and somber fire burned out the happiness in Thorne's eyes.

"Dick,
don't make me--don't let me think of that fiend Rojas!....I'm here now.

I'll be well in a day or two.

Then!..."

Mercedes came in,
radiant and soft-voiced.

She fell upon her knees beside Thorne's bed,
and neither of them appeared
to see Nell enter
with a tray.

Then Gale and Nell made a good deal of unnecessary bustle in moving a small table close
to the bed.

Mercedes had forgotten
for the moment that her lover had been a starving man.

If Thorne remembered it he did not care.

They held hands and looked at each other without speaking.

"Nell,
I thought I had it bad,"
whispered Dick.

"But I'm not--"
"Hush.

It's beautiful,"
replied Nell,
softly;
and she tried
to coax Dick from the room.

Dick,
however,
thought he ought
to remain at least long enough
to tell Thorne that a man in his condition could not exist solely upon love.

Mercedes sprang up blushing
with pretty,
penitent manner and moving white hands eloquent of her condition.

"Oh,
Mercedes--don't go!"
cried Thorne,
as she stepped
to the door.

"Senor Dick will stay.

He is not mucha malo
for you--as I am."

Then she smiled and went out.

"Good Lord!"
exclaimed Thorne.

"How I love her.

Dick,
isn't she the most beautiful,
the loveliest,
the finest--"
"George,
I share your enthusiasm,"
said Dick,
dryly,
"but Mercedes isn't the only girl on earth."

Manifestly this was a startling piece of information,
and struck Thorne in more than one way.

"George,"
went on Dick,
"did you happen
to observe the girl who saved your life--who incidentally just fetched in your breakfast?"
"Nell Burton! Why,
of course.

She's brave,
a wonderful girl,
and really nice-looking."

"You long,
lean,
hungry beggar! That was the young lady who might answer the raving eulogy you just got out of your system....I--well,
you haven't cornered the love market!"
Thorne uttered some kind of a sound that his weakened condition would not allow
to be a whoop.

"Dick! Do you mean it?"
"I shore do,
as Laddy says."

"I'm glad,
Dick,
with all my heart.

I wondered at the changed look you wear.

Why,
boy,
you've got a different front....Call the lady in,
and you bet I'll look her over right.

I can see better now."

"Eat your breakfast.

There's plenty of time
to dazzle you afterward."

Thorne fell
to upon his breakfast and made it vanish
with magic speed.

Meanwhile Dick told him something of a ranger's life along the border.

"You needn't waste your breath,"
said Thorne.

"I guess I can see.

Belding and those rangers have made you the real thing--the real Western goods....What I want
to know is all about the girl."

"Well,
Laddy swears she's got your girl roped in the corral
for looks."

"That's not possible.

I'll have
to talk
to Laddy....But she must be a wonder,
or Dick Gale would never have fallen
for her....Isn't it great,
Dick?

I'm here! Mercedes is well--safe! You've got a girl! Oh!....But say,
I haven't a dollar
to my name.

I had a lot of money,
Dick,
and those robbers stole it,
my watch--everything.

Damn that little black Greaser! He got Mercedes's letters.

I wish you could have seen him trying
to read them.

He's simply nutty over her,
Dick.

I could have borne the loss of money and valuables--but those beautiful,
wonderful letters--they're gone!"
"Cheer up.

You have the girl.

Belding will make you a proposition presently.

The future smiles,
old friend.

If this rebel business was only ended!"
"Dick,
you're going
to be my savior twice over....Well,
now,
listen
to me."

His gay excitement changed
to earnet gravity.

"I want
to marry Mercedes at once.

Is there a padre here?"
"Yes.

But are you wise in letting any Mexican,
even a priest,
know Mercedes is hidden in Forlorn River?"
"It couldn't be kept much longer."

Gale was compelled
to acknowledge the truth of this statement.

"I'll marry her first,
then I'll face my problem.

Fetch the padre,
Dick.

And ask our kind friends
to be witnesses at the ceremony."

Much
to Gale's surprise neither Belding nor Ladd objected
to the idea of bringing a padre into the household,
and thereby making known
to at least one Mexican the whereabouts of Mercedes Castaneda.

Belding's caution was wearing out in wrath at the persistent unsettled condition of the border,
and Ladd grew only the cooler and more silent as possibilities of trouble multiplied.

Gale fetched the padre,
a little,
weazened,
timid man who was old and without interest or penetration.

Apparently he married Mercedes and Thorne as he told his beads or mumbled a prayer.

It was Mrs. Belding who kept the occasion from being a merry one,
and she insisted on not exciting Thorne.

Gale marked her unusual pallor and the singular depth and sweetness of her voice.

"Mother,
what's the use of making a funeral out of a marriage?"
protested Belding.

"A chance
for some fun doesn't often come
to Forlorn River.

You're a fine doctor.

Can't you see the girl is what Thorne needed?

He'll be well to-morrow,
don't mistake me."

"George,
when you're all right again we'll add something
to present congratulations,"
said Gale.

"We shore will,"
put in Ladd.

So
with parting jests and smiles they left the couple
to themselves.

Belding enjoyed a laugh at his good wife's expense,
for Thorne could not be kept in bed,
and all in a day,
it seemed,
he grew so well and so hungry that his friends were delighted,
and Mercedes was radiant.

In a few days his weakness disappeared and he was going the round of the fields and looking over the ground marked out in Gale's plan of water development.

Thorne was highly enthusiastic,
and at once staked out his claim
for one hundred and sixty acres of land adjoining that of Belding and the rangers.

These five tracts took in all the ground necessary
for their operations,
but in case of the success of the irrigation project the idea was
to increase their squatter holdings by purchase of more land down the valley.

A hundred families had lately moved
to Forlorn River;
more were coming all the time;
and Belding vowed he could see a vision of the whole Altar Valley green
with farms.

Meanwhile everybody in Belding's household,
except the quiet Ladd and the watchful Yaqui,
in the absence of disturbance of any kind along the border,
grew freer and more unrestrained,
as if anxiety was slowly fading in the peace of the present.

Jim Lash made a trip
to the Sonoyta Oasis,
and Ladd patrolled fifty miles of the line eastward without incident or sight of raiders.

Evidently all the border hawks were in at the picking of Casita.

The February nights were cold,
with a dry,
icy,
penetrating coldness that made a warm fire most comfortable.

Belding's household usually congregated in the sitting-room,
where burning mesquite logs crackled in the open fireplace.

Belding's one passion besides horses was the game of checkers,
and he was always wanting
to play.

On this night he sat playing
with Ladd,
who never won a game and never could give up trying.

Mrs.Belding worked
with her needle,
stopping from time
to time
to gaze
with thoughtful eyes into the fire.

Jim Lash smoked his pipe by the hearth and played
with the cat on his knee.

Thorne and Mercedes were at the table
with pencil and paper;
and he was trying his best
to keep his attention from his wife's beautiful,
animated face long enough
to read and write a little Spanish.

Gale and Nell sat in a corner watching the bright fire.

There came a low knock on the door.

It may have been an ordinary knock,
for it did not disturb the women;
but
to Belding and his rangers it had a subtle meaning.

"Who's that?"
asked Belding,
as he slowly pushed back his chair and looked at Ladd.

"Yaqui,"
replied the ranger.

"Come in,"
called Belding.

The door opened,
and the short,
square,
powerfully built Indian entered.

He had a magnificent head,
strangely staring,
somber black eyes,
and very darkly bronzed face.

He carried a rifle and strode
with impressive dignity.

"Yaqui,
what do you want?"
asked Belding,
and repeated his question in Spanish.

"Senor Dick,"
replied the Indian.

Gale jumped up,
stifling an exclamation,
and he went outdoors
with Yaqui.

He felt his arm gripped,
and allowed himself
to be led away without asking a question.

Yaqui's presence was always one of gloom,
and now his stern action boded catastrophe.

Once clear of trees he pointed
to the level desert across the river,
where a row of campfires shone bright out of the darkness.

"Raiders!"
ejaculated Gale.

Then he cautioned Yaqui
to keep sharp lookout,
and,
hurriedly returning
to the house,
he called the men out and told them there were rebels or raiders camping just across the line.

Ladd did not say a word.

Belding,
with an oath,
slammed down his cigar.

"I knew it was too good
to last....Dick,
you and Jim stay here while Laddy and I look around."

Dick returned
to the sitting-room.

The women were nervous and not
to be deceived.

So Dick merely said Yaqui had sighted some lights off in the desert,
and they probably were campfires.

Belding did not soon return,
and when he did he was alone,
and,
saying he wanted
to consult
with the men,
he sent Mrs. Belding and the girls
to their rooms.

His gloomy anxiety had returned.

"Laddy's gone over
to scout around and try
to find out who the outfit belongs
to and how many are in it,"
said Belding.

"I reckon if they're raiders
with bad intentions we wouldn't see no fires,"
remarked Jim,
calmly.

"It
'd be useless,
I suppose,
to send
for the cavalry,"
said Gale.

"Whatever's coming off would be over before the soldiers could be notified,
let alone reach here."

"Hell,
fellows! I don't look
for an attack on Forlorn River,"
burst out Belding.

"I can't believe that possible.

These rebel-raiders have a little sense.

They wouldn't spoil their game by pulling U.

S.

soldiers across the line from Yuma
to El Paso.

But,
as Jim says,
if they wanted
to steal a few horses or cattle they wouldn't build fires.

I'm afraid it's--"
Belding hesitated and looked
with grim concern at the cavalryman.

"What?"
queried Thorne.

"I'm afraid it's Rojas."

Thorne turned pale but did not lose his nerve.

"I thought of that at once.

If true,
it'll be terrible
for Mercedes and me.

But Rojas will never get his hands on my wife.

If I can't kill him,
I'll kill her!...Belding,
this is tough on you--this risk we put upon your family.

I regret--"
"Cut that kind of talk,"
replied Belding,
bluntly.

"Well,
if it is Rojas he's acting damn strange
for a raider.

That's what worries me.

We can't do anything but wait.

With Laddy and Yaqui out there we won't be surprised.

Let's take the best possible view of the situation until we know more.

That'll not likely be before to-morrow."

The women of the house might have gotten some sleep that night,
but it was certain the men did not get any.

Morning broke cold and gray,
the 19th of February.

Breakfast was prepared earlier than usual,
and an air of suppressed waiting excitement pervaded the place.

Otherwise the ordinary details of the morning's work continued as on any other day.

Ladd came in hungry and cold,
and said the Mexicans were not breaking camp.

He reported a good-sized force of rebels,
and was taciturn as
to his idea of forthcoming events.

About an hour after sunrise Yaqui ran in
with the information that part of the rebels were crossing the river.

"That can't mean a fight yet,"
declared Belding.

"But get in the house,
boys,
and make ready anyway.

I'll meet them."

"Drive them off the place same as if you had a company of soldiers backin'
you,"
said Ladd.

"Don't give them an inch.

We're in bad,
and the bigger bluff we put up the more likely our chance."

"Belding,
you're an officer of the United States.

Mexicans are much impressed by show of authority.

I've seen that often in camp,"
said Thorne.

"Oh,
I know the white-livered Greasers better than any of you,
don't mistake me,"
replied Belding.

He was pale
with rage,
but kept command over himself.

The rangers,
with Yaqui and Thorne,
stationed themselves at the several windows of the sitting-room.

Rifles and smaller arms and boxes of shells littered the tables and window seats.

No small force of besiegers could overcome a resistance such as Belding and his men were capable of making.

"Here they come,
boys,"
called Gale,
from his window.

"Rebel-raiders I should say,
Laddy."

"Shore.

An'
a fine outfit of buzzards!"
"Reckon there's about a dozen in the bunch,"
observed the calm Lash.

"Some hosses they're ridin'.

Where
'n the hell do they get such hosses,
anyhow?"
"Shore,
Jim,
they work hard an'
buy
'em
with real silver pesos,"
replied Ladd,
sarcastically.

"Do any of you see Rojas?"
whispered Thorne.

"Nix.

No dandy bandit in that outfit."

"It's too far
to see,"
said Gale.

The horsemen halted at the corrals.

They were orderly and showed no evidence of hostility.

They were,
however,
fully armed.

Belding stalked out
to meet them.

Apparently a leader wanted
to parley
with him,
but Belding would hear nothing.

He shook his head,
waved his arms,
stamped
to and fro,
and his loud,
angry voice could be heard clear back at the house.

Whereupon the detachment of rebels retired
to the bank of the river,
beyond the white post that marked the boundary line,
and there they once more drew rein.

Belding remained by the corrals watching them,
evidently still in threatening mood.

Presently a single rider left the troop and trotted his horse back down the road.

When he reached the corrals he was seen
to halt and pass something
to Belding.

Then he galloped away
to join his comrades.

Belding looked at whatever it was he held in his hand,
shook his burley head,
and started swiftly
for the house.

He came striding into the room holding a piece of soiled paper.

"Can't read it and don't know as I want to,"
he said,
savagely.

"Beldin',
shore we'd better read it,"
replied Ladd.

"What we want is a line on them Greasers.

Whether they're Campo's men or Salazar's,
or just a wanderin'
bunch of rebels--or Rojas's bandits.

Sabe,
senor?"
Not one of the men was able
to translate the garbled scrawl.

"Shore Mercedes can read it,"
said Ladd.

Thorne opened a door and called her.

She came into the room followed by Nell and Mrs. Belding.

Evidently all three divined a critical situation.

"My dear,
we want you
to read what's written on this paper,"
said Thorne,
as he led her
to the table.

"It was sent in by rebels,
and--and we fear contains bad news
for us."

Mercedes gave the writing one swift glance,
then fainted in Thorne's arms.

He carried her
to a couch,
and
with Nell and Mrs. Belding began
to work over her.

Belding looked at his rangers.

It was characteristic of the man that,
now when catastrophe appeared inevitable,
all the gloom and care and angry agitation passed from him.

"Laddy,
it's Rojas all right.

How many men has he out there?"
"Mebbe twenty.

Not more."

"We can lick twice that many Greasers."

"Shore."

Jim Lash removed his pipe long enough
to speak.

"I reckon.

But it ain't sense
to start a fight when mebbe we can avoid it."

"What's your idea?"
"Let's stave the Greaser off till dark.

Then Laddy an'
me an'
Thorne will take Mercedes an'
hit the trail
for Yuma."

"Camino del Diablo! That awful trail
with a woman! Jim,
do you forget how many hundreds of men have perished on the Devil's Road?"
"I reckon I ain't forgettin'
nothin',"
replied Jim.

"The waterholes are full now.

There's grass,
an'
we can do the job in six days."

"It's three hundred miles
to Yuma."

"Beldin',
Jim's idea hits me pretty reasonable,"
interposed Ladd.

"Lord knows that's about the only chance we've got except fightin'."

"But suppose we do stave Rojas off,
and you get safely away
with Mercedes.

Isn't Rojas going
to find it out quick?

Then what'll he try
to do
to us who're left here?"
"I reckon he'd find out by daylight,"
replied Jim.

"But,
Tom,
he ain't agoin'
to start a scrap then.

He'd want time an'
hosses an'
men
to chase us out on the trail.

You see,
I'm figgerin'
on the crazy Greaser wantin'
the girl.

I reckon he'll try
to clean up here
to get her.

But he's too smart
to fight you
for nothin'.

Rojas may be nutty about women,
but he's afraid of the U.

S.

Take my word
for it he'd discover the trail in the mornin'
an'
light out on it.

I reckon
with ten hours'
start we could travel comfortable."

Belding paced up and down the room.

Jim and Ladd whispered together.

Gale walked
to the window and looked out at the distant group of bandits,
and then turned his gaze
to rest upon Mercedes.

She was conscious now,
and her eyes seemed all the larger and blacker
for the whiteness of her face.

Thorne held her hands,
and the other women were trying
to still her tremblings.

No one but Gale saw the Yaqui in the background looking down upon the Spanish girl.

All of Yaqui's looks were strange;
but this singularly so.

Gale marked it,
and felt he would never forget.

Mercedes's beauty had never before struck him as being so exquisite,
so alluring as now when she lay stricken.

Gale wondered if the Indian was affected by her loveliness,
her helplessness,
or her terror.

Yaqui had seen Mercedes only a few times,
and upon each of these he had appeared
to be fascinated.

Could the strange Indian,
because his hate
for Mexicans was so great,
be gloating over her misery?

Something about Yaqui--a noble austerity of countenance--made Gale feel his suspicion unjust.

Presently Belding called his rangers
to him,
and then Thorne.

"Listen
to this,"
he said,
earnestly.

"I'll go out and have a talk
with Rojas.

I'll try
to reason
with him;
tell him
to think a long time before he sheds blood on Uncle Sam's soil.

That he's now after an American's wife! I'll not commit myself,
nor will I refuse outright
to consider his demands,
nor will I show the least fear of him.

I'll play
for time.

If my bluff goes through...well and good....After dark the four of you,
Laddy,
Jim,
Dick,
and Thorne,
will take Mercedes and my best white horses,
and,
with Yaqui as guide,
circle round through Altar Valley
to the trail,
and head
for Yuma....Wait now,
Laddy.

Let me finish.

I want you
to take the white horses
for two reasons--to save them and
to save you.

Savvy?

If Rojas should follow on my horses he'd be likely
to catch you.

Also,
you can pack a great deal more than on the bronchs.

Also,
the big horses can travel faster and farther on little grass and water.

I want you
to take the Indian,
because in a case of this kind he'll be a godsend.

If you get headed or lost or have
to circle off the trail,
think what it
'd mean
to have Yaqui
with you.

He knows Sonora as no Greaser knows it.

He could hide you,
find water and grass,
when you would absolutely believe it impossible.

The Indian is loyal.

He has his debt
to pay,
and he'll pay it,
don't mistake me.

When you're gone I'll hide Nell so Rojas won't see her if he searches the place.

Then I think I could sit down and wait without any particular worry."

The rangers approved of Belding's plan,
and Thorne choked in his effort
to express his gratitude.

"All right,
we'll chance it,"
concluded Belding.

"I'll go out now and call Rojas and his outfit over...Say,
it might be as well
for me
to know just what he said in that paper."

Thorne went
to the side of his wife.

"Mercedes,
we've planned
to outwit Rojas.

Will you tell us just what he wrote?"
The girl sat up,
her eyes dilating,
and
with her hands clasping Thorne's.

She said:

"Rojas swore--by his saints and his virgin--that if I wasn't given--to him--in twenty-four hours--he would set fire
to the village--kill the men--carry off the women--hang the children on cactus thorns!"
A moment's silence followed her last halting whisper.

"By his saints an'
his virgin!"
echoed Ladd.

He laughed--a cold,
cutting,
deadly laugh--significant and terrible.

Then the Yaqui uttered a singular cry.

Gale had heard this once before,
and now he remembered it was at the Papago Well.

"Look at the Indian,"
whispered Belding,
hoarsely.

"Damn if I don't believe he understood every word Mercedes said.

And,
gentlemen,
don't mistake me,
if he ever gets near Senor Rojas there'll be some gory Aztec knife work."

Yaqui had moved close
to Mercedes,
and stood beside her as she leaned against her husband.

She seemed impelled
to meet the Indian's gaze,
and evidently it was so powerful or hypnotic that it wrought irresistibly upon her.

But she must have seen or divined what was beyond the others,
for she offered him her trembling hand.

Yaqui took it and laid it against his body in a strange motion,
and bowed his head.

Then he stepped back into the shadow of the room.

Belding went outdoors while the rangers took up their former position at the west window.

Each had his own somber thoughts,
Gale imagined,
and knew his own were dark enough.

A slow fire crept along his veins.

He saw Belding halt at the corrals and wave his hand.

Then the rebels mounted and came briskly up the road,
this time
to rein in abreast.

Wherever Rojas had kept himself upon the former advance was not clear;
but he certainly was prominently in sight now.

He made a gaudy,
almost a dashing figure.

Gale did not recognize the white sombrero,
the crimson scarf,
the velvet jacket,
nor any feature of the dandy's costume;
but their general effect,
the whole ensemble,
recalled vividly
to mind his first sight of the bandit.

Rojas dismounted and seemed
to be listening.

He betrayed none of the excitement Gale had seen in him that night at the Del Sol.

Evidently this composure struck Ladd and Lash as unusual in a Mexican supposed
to be laboring under stress of feeling.

Belding made gestures,
vehemently bobbed his big head,
appeared
to talk
with his body as much as
with his tongue.

Then Rojas was seen
to reply,
and after that it was clear that the talk became painful and difficult.

It ended finally in what appeared
to be mutual understanding.

Rojas mounted and rode away
with his men,
while Belding came tramping back
to the house.

As he entered the door his eyes were shining,
his big hands were clenched,
and he was breathing audibly.

"You can rope me if I'm not locoed!"
he burst out.

"I went out
to conciliate a red-handed little murderer,
and damn me if I didn't meet a--a--well,
I've not suitable name handy.

I started my bluff and got along pretty well,
but I forgot
to mention that Mercedes was Thorne's wife.

And what do you think?

Rojas swore he loved Mercedes-- swore he'd marry her right here in Forlorn River--swore he would give up robbing and killing people,
and take her away from Mexico.

He has gold--jewels.

He swore if he didn't get her nothing mattered.

He'd die anyway without her....And here's the strange thing.

I believe him! He was cold as ice,
and all hell inside.

Never saw a Greaser like him.

Well,
I pretended
to be greatly impressed.

We got
to talking friendly,
I suppose,
though I didn't understand half he said,
and I imagine he gathered less what I said.

Anyway,
without my asking he said
for me
to think it over
for a day and then we'd talk again."

"Shore we're born lucky!"
ejaculated Ladd.

"I reckon Rojas'll be smart enough
to string his outfit across the few trails leadin'
out of Forlorn River,"
remarked Jim.

"That needn't worry us.

All we want is dark
to come,"
replied Belding.

"Yaqui will slip through.

If we thank any lucky stars let it be
for the Indian....Now,
boys,
put on your thinking caps.

You'll take eight horses,
the pick of my bunch.

You must pack all that's needed
for a possible long trip.

Mind,
Yaqui may lead you down into some wild Sonora valley and give Rojas the slip.

You may get
to Yuma in six days,
and maybe in six weeks.

Yet you've got
to pack light--a small pack in saddles--larger ones on the two free horses.

You may have a big fight.

Laddy,
take the .405.

Dick will pack his Remington.

All of you go gunned heavy.

But the main thing is a pack that
'll be light enough
for swift travel,
yet one that
'll keep you from starving on the desert."

The rest of that day passed swiftly.

Dick had scarcely a word
with Nell,
and all the time,
as he chose and deliberated and worked over his little pack,
there was a dull pain in his heart.

The sun set,
twilight fell,
then night closed down fortunately a night slightly overcast.

Gale saw the white horses pass his door like silent ghosts.

Even Blanco Diablo made no sound,
and that fact was indeed a tribute
to the Yaqui.

Gale went out
to put his saddle on Blanco Sol.

The horse rubbed a soft nose against his shoulder.

Then Gale returned
to the sitting-room.

There was nothing more
to do but wait and say good-by.

Mercedes came clad in leather chaps and coat,
a slim stripling of a cowboy,
her dark eyes flashing.

Her beauty could not be hidden,
and now hope and courage had fired her blood.

Gale drew Nell off into the shadow of the room.

She was trembling,
and as she leaned toward him she was very different from the coy girl who had so long held him aloof.

He took her into his arms.

"Dearest,
I'm going--sonn....And maybe I'll never--"
"Dick,
do--don't say it,"
sobbed Nell,
with her head on his breast.

"I might never come back,"
he went on,
steadily.

"I love you--I've loved you ever since the first moment I saw you.

Do you care
for me--a little?"
"Dear Dick--de-dear Dick,
my heart is breaking,"
faltered Nell,
as she clung
to him.

"It might be breaking
for Mercedes--for Laddy and Jim.

I want
to hear something
for myself.

Something
to have on long marches--round lonely campfires.

Something
to keep my spirit alive.

Oh,
Nell,
you can't imagine that silence out there--that terrible world of sand and stone!...Do you love me?"
"Yes,
yes.

Oh,
I love you so! I never knew it till now.

I love you so.

Dick,
I'll be safe and I'll wait--and hope and pray
for your return."

"If I come back--no--when I come back,
will you marry me?"
"I--I--oh yes!"
she whispered,
and returned his kiss.

Belding was in the room speaking softly.

"Nell,
darling,
I must go,"
said Dick.

"I'm a selfish little coward,"
cried Nell.

"It's so splendid of you all.

I ought
to glory in it,
but I can't.

...Fight if you must,
Dick.

Fight
for that lovely persecuted girl.

I'll love you--the more....Oh! Good-by! Good-by!"
With a wrench that shook him Gale let her go.

He heard Belding's soft voice.

"Yaqui says the early hour's best.

Trust him,
Laddy.

Remember what I say--Yaqui's a godsend."

Then they were all outside in the pale gloom under the trees.

Yaqui mounted Blanco Diablo;
Mercedes was lifted upon White Woman;
Thorne climbed astride Queen;
Jim Lash was already upon his horse,
which was as white as the others but bore no name;
Ladd mounted the stallion Blanco Torres,
and gathered up the long halters of the two pack horses;
Gale came last
with Blanco Sol.

As he toed the stirrup,
hand on mane and pommel,
Gale took one more look in at the door.

Nell stood in the gleam of light,
her hair shining,
face like ashes,
her eyes dark,
her lips parted,
her arms outstretched.

That sweet and tragic picture etched its cruel outlines into Gale's heart.

He waved his hand and then fiercely leaped into the saddle.

Blanco Sol stepped out.

Before Gale stretched a line of moving horses,
white against dark shadows.

He could not see the head of that column;
he scarcely heard a soft hoofbeat.

A single star shone out of a rift in thin clouds.

There was no wind.

The air was cold.

The dark space of desert seemed
to yawn.

To the left across the river flickered a few campfires.

The chill night,
silent and mystical,
seemed
to close in upon Gale;
and he faced the wide,
quivering,
black level
with keen eyes and grim intent,
and an awakening of that wild rapture which came like a spell
to him in the open desert.

XI Across Cactus and Lava Blanco Sol showed no inclination
to bend his head
to the alfalfa which swished softly about his legs.

Gale felt the horse's sensitive,
almost human alertness.

Sol knew as well as his master the nature of that flight.

At the far corner of the field Yaqui halted,
and slowly the line of white horses merged into a compact mass.

There was a trail here leading down
to the river.

the campfires were so close that the bright blazes could be seen in movement,
and dark forms crossed in front of them.

Yaqui slipped out of his saddle.

He ran his hand over Diablo's nose and spoke low,
and repeated this action
for each of the other horses.

Gale had long ceased
to question the strange Indian's behavior.

There was no explaining or understanding many of his manoeuvers.

But the results of them were always thought-provoking.

Gale had never seen horse stand so silently as in this instance;
no stamp--no champ of bit--no toss of head--no shake of saddle or pack--no heave or snort! It seemed they had become imbued
with the spirit of the Indian.

Yaqui moved away into the shadows as noiselessly as if he were one of them.

The darkness swallowed him.

He had taken a parallel
with the trail.

Gale wondered if Yaqui meant
to try
to lead his string of horses by the rebel sentinels.

Ladd had his head bent low,
his ear toward the trail.

Jim's long neck had the arch of a listening deer.

Gale listened,
too,
and as the slow,
silent moments went by his faculty of hearing grew more acute from strain.

He heard Blanco Sol breathe;
he heard the pound of his own heart;
he heard the silken rustle of the alfalfa;
he heard a faint,
far-off sound of voice,
like a lost echo.

Then his ear seemed
to register a movement of air,
a disturbance so soft as
to be nameless.

Then followed long,
silent moments.

Yaqui appeared as he had vanished.

He might have been part of the shadows.

But he was there.

He started off down the trail leading Diablo.

Again the white line stretched slowly out.

Gale fell in behind.

A bench of ground,
covered
with sparse greasewood,
sloped gently down
to the deep,
wide arroyo of Forlorn River.

Blanco Sol shied a few feet out of the trail.

Peering low
with keen eyes,
Gale made out three objects--a white sombrero,
a blanket,
and a Mexican lying face down.

The Yaqui had stolen upon this sentinel like a silent wind of death.

Just then a desert coyote wailed,
and the wild cry fitted the darkness and the Yaqui's deed.

Once under the dark lee of the river bank Yaqui caused another halt,
and he disappeared as before.

It seemed
to Gale that the Indian started
to cross the pale level sandbed of the river,
where stones stood out gray,
and the darker line of opposite shore was visible.

But he vanished,
and it was impossible
to tell whether he went one way or another.

Moments passed.

The horses held heads up,
looked toward the glimmering campfires and listened.

Gale thrilled
with the meaning of it all--the night--the silence --the flight--and the wonderful Indian stealing
with the slow inevitableness of doom upon another sentinel.

An hour passed and Gale seemed
to have become deadened
to all sense of hearing.

There were no more sounds in the world.

The desert was as silent as it was black.

Yet again came that strange change in the tensity of Gale's ear-strain,
a check,
a break,
a vibration--and this time the sound did not go nameless.

It might have been moan of wind or wail of far-distant wolf,
but Gale imagined it was the strangling death-cry of another guard,
or that strange,
involuntary utterance of the Yaqui.

Blanco Sol trembled in all his great frame,
and then Gale was certain the sound was not imagination.

That certainty,
once
for all,
fixed in Gale's mind the mood of his flight.

The Yaqui dominated the horses and the rangers.

Thorne and Mercedes were as persons under a spell.

The Indian's strange silence,
the feeling of mystery and power he seemed
to create,
all that was incomprehensible about him were emphasized in the light of his slow,
sure,
and ruthless action.

If he dominated the others,
surely he did more
for Gale--colored his thoughts--presage the wild and terrible future of that flight.

If Rojas embodied all the hatred and passion of the peon--scourged slave
for a thousand years--then Yaqui embodied all the darkness,
the cruelty,
the white,
sun-heated blood,
the ferocity,
the tragedy of the desert.

Suddenly the Indian stalked out of the gloom.

He mounted Diablo and headed across the river.

Once more the line of moving white shadows stretched out.

The soft sand gave forth no sound at all.

The glimmering campfires sank behind the western bank.

Yaqui led the way into the willows,
and there was faint swishing of leaves;
then into the mesquite,
and there was faint rustling of branches.

The glimmering lights appeared again,
and grotesque forms of saguaros loomed darkly.

Gale peered sharply along the trail,
and,
presently,
on the pale sand under a cactus,
there lay a blanketed form,
prone,
outstretched,
a carbine clutched in one hand,
a cigarette,
still burning,
in the other.

The cavalcade of white horses passed within five hundred yards of campfires,
around which dark forms moved in plain sight.

Soft pads in sand,
faint metallic tickings of steel on thorns,
low,
regular breathing of horses--these were all the sounds the fugitives made,
and they could not have been heard at one-fifth the distance.

The lights disappeared from time
to time,
grew dimmer,
more flickering,
and at last they vanished altogether.

Belding's fleet and tireless steeds were out in front;
the desert opened ahead wide,
dark,
vast.

Rojas and his rebels were behind,
eating,
drinking,
careless.

The somber shadow lifted from Gale's heart.

He held now an unquenchable faith in the Yaqui.

Belding would be listening back there along the river.

He would know of the escape.

He would tell Nell,
and then hide her safely.

As Gale accepted a strange and fatalistic foreshadowing of toil,
blood,
and agony in this desert journey,
so he believed in Mercedes's ultimate freedom and happiness,
and his own return
to the girl who had grown dearer than life.

A cold,
gray dawn was fleeing before a rosy sun when Yaqui halted the march at Papago Well.

The horses were taken
to water,
then led down the arroyo into the grass.

Here packs were slipped,
saddles removed.

Mercedes was cold,
lame,
tired,
but happy.

It warmed Gale's blood
to look at her.

The shadow of fear still lay in her eyes,
but it was passing.

Hope and courage shone there,
and affection
for her ranger protectors and the Yaqui,
and unutterable love
for the cavalryman.

Jim Lash remarked how cleverly they had fooled the rebels.

"Shore they'll be comin'
along,"
replied Ladd.

They built a fire,
cooked and ate.

The Yaqui spoke only one word:

"Sleep."

Blankets were spread.

Mercedes dropped into a deep slumber,
her head on Thorne's shoulder.

Excitement kept Throne awake.

The two rangers dozed beside the fire.

Gale shared the Yaqui's watch.

The sun began
to climb and the icy edge of dawn
to wear away.

Rabbits bobbed their cotton tails under the mesquite.

Gale climbed a rocky wall above the arroyo bank,
and there,
with command over the miles of the back-trail,
he watched.

It was a sweeping,
rolling,
wrinkled,
and streaked range of desert that he saw,
ruddy in the morning sunlight,
with patches of cactus and mesquite rough-etched in shimmering gloom.

No Name Mountains split the eastern sky,
towering high,
gloomy,
grand,
with purple veils upon their slopes.

They were forty miles away and looked five.

Gale thought of the girl who was there under their shadow.

Yaqui kept the horses bunched,
and he led them from one little park of galleta grass
to another.

At the end of three hours he took them
to water.

Upon his return Gale clambered down from his outlook,
the rangers grew active.

Mercedes was awakened;
and soon the party faced westward,
their long shadows moving before them.

Yaqui led
with Blanco Diablo in a long,
easy lope.

The arroyo washed itself out into flat desert,
and the greens began
to shade into gray,
and then the gray into red.

Only sparse cactus and weathered ledges dotted the great low roll of a rising escarpment.

Yaqui suited the gait of his horse
to the lay of the land,
and his followers accepted his pace.

There were canter and trot,
and swift walk and slow climb,
and long swing--miles up and down and forward.

The sun soared hot.

The heated air lifted,
and incoming currents from the west swept low and hard over the barren earth.

In the distance,
all around the horizon,
accumulations of dust seemed like ranging,
mushrooming yellow clouds.

Yaqui was the only one of the fugitives who never looked back.

Mercedes did it the most.

Gale felt what compelled her,
he could not resist it himself.

But it was a vain search.

For a thousand puffs of white and yellow dust rose from that backward sweep of desert,
and any one of them might have been blown from under horses'
hoofs.

Gale had a conviction that when Yaqui gazed back toward the well and the shining plain beyond,
there would be reason
for it.

But when the sun lost its heat and the wind died down Yaqui took long and careful surveys westward from the high points on the trail.

Sunset was not far off,
and there in a bare,
spotted valley lay Coyote Tanks,
the only waterhole between Papago Well and the Sonoyta Oasis.

Gale used his glass,
told Yaqui there was no smoke,
no sign of life;
still the Indian fixed his falcon eyes on distant spots looked long.

It was as if his vision could not detect what reason or cunning or intuition,
perhaps an instinct,
told him was there.

Presently in a sheltered spot,
where blown sand had not obliterated the trail,
Yaqui found the tracks of horses.

The curve of the iron shoes pointed westward.

An intersecting trail from the north came in here.

Gale thought the tracks either one or two days old.

Ladd said they were one day.

The Indian shook his head.

No farther advance was undertaken.

The Yaqui headed south and traveled slowly,
climbing
to the brow of a bold height of weathered mesa.

There he sat his horse and waited.

No one questioned him.

The rangers dismounted
to stretch their legs,
and Mercedes was lifted
to a rock,
where she rested.

Thorne had gradually yielded
to the desert's influence
for silence.

He spoke once or twice
to Gale,
and occasionally whispered
to Mercedes.

Gale fancied his friend would soon learn that necessary speech in desert travel meant a few greetings,
a few words
to make real the fact of human companionship,
a few short,
terse terms
for the business of day or night,
and perhaps a stern order or a soft call
to a horse.

The sun went down,
and the golden,
rosy veils turned
to blue and shaded darker till twilight was there in the valley.

Only the spurs of mountains,
spiring the near and far horizon,
retained their clear outline.

Darkness approached,
and the clear peaks faded.

The horses stamped
to be on the move.

"Malo!"
exclaimed the Yaqui.

He did not point
with arm,
but his falcon head was outstretched,
and his piercing eyes gazed at the blurring spot which marked the location of Coyote Tanks.

"Jim,
can you see anything?"
asked Ladd.

"Nope,
but I reckon he can."

Darkness increased momentarily till night shaded the deepest part of the valley.

Then Ladd suddenly straightened up,
turned
to his horse,
and muttered low under his breath.

"I reckon so,"
said Lash,
and
for once his easy,
good-natured tone was not in evidence.

His voice was harsh.

Gale's eyes,
keen as they were,
were last of the rangers
to see tiny,
needle-points of light just faintly perceptible in the blackness.

"Laddy! Campfires?"
he asked,
quickly.

"Shore's you're born,
my boy."

"How many?"
Ladd did not reply;
but Yaqui held up his hand,
his fingers wide.

Five campfires! A strong force of rebels or raiders or some other desert troop was camping at Coyote Tanks.

Yaqui sat his horse
for a moment,
motionless as stone,
his dark face immutable and impassive.

Then he stretched wide his right arm in the direction of No Name Mountains,
now losing their last faint traces of the afterglow,
and he shook his head.

He made the same impressive gesture toward the Sonoyta Oasis
with the same somber negation.

Thereupon he turned Diablo's head
to the south and started down the slope.

His manner had been decisive,
even stern.

Lash did not question it,
nor did Ladd.

Both rangers hesitated,
however,
and showed a strange,
almost sullen reluctance which Gale had never seen in them before.

Raiders were one thing,
Rojas was another;
Camino del Diablo still another;
but that vast and desolate and unwatered waste of cactus and lava,
the Sonora Desert,
might appal the stoutest heart.

Gale felt his own sink--felt himself flinch.

"Oh,
where is he going?"
cried Mercedes.

Her poignant voice seemed
to break a spell.

"Shore,
lady,
Yaqui's goin'
home,"
replied Ladd,
gently.

"An'
considerin'
our troubles I reckon we ought
to thank God he knows the way."

They mounted and rode down the slope toward the darkening south.

Not until night travel was obstructed by a wall of cactus did the Indian halt
to make a dry camp.

Water and grass
for the horses and fire
to cook by were not
to be had.

Mercedes bore up surprisingly;
but she fell asleep almost the instant her thirst had been allayed.

Thorne laid her upon a blanket and covered her.

The men ate and drank.

Diablo was the only horse that showed impatience;
but he was angry,
and not in distress.

Blanco Sol licked Gale's hand and stood patiently.

Many a time had he taken his rest at night without a drink.

Yaqui again bade the men sleep.

Ladd said he would take the early watch;
but from the way the Indian shook his head and settled himself against a stone,
it appeared if Ladd remained awake he would have company.

Gale lay down weary of limb and eye.

He heard the soft thump of hoofs,
the sough of wind in the cactus--then no more.

When he awoke there was bustle and stir about him.

Day had not yet dawned,
and the air was freezing cold.

Yaqui had found a scant bundle of greasewood which served
to warm them and
to cook breakfast.

Mercedes was not aroused till the last moment.

Day dawned
with the fugitives in the saddle.

A picketed wall of cactus hedged them in,
yet the Yaqui made a tortuous path,
that,
zigzag as it might,
in the main always headed south.

It was wonderful how he slipped Diablo through the narrow aisles of thorns,
saving the horse and saving himself.

The others were torn and clutched and held and stung.

The way was a flat,
sandy pass between low mountain ranges.

There were open spots and aisles and squares of sand;
and hedging rows of prickly pear and the huge spider-legged ocatillo and hummocky masses of clustered bisnagi.

The day grew dry and hot.

A fragrant wind blew through the pass.

Cactus flowers bloomed,
red and yellow and magenta.

The sweet,
pale Ajo lily gleamed in shady corners.

Ten miles of travel covered the length of the pass.

It opened wide upon a wonderful scene,
an arboreal desert,
dominated by its pure light green,
yet lined by many merging colors.

And it rose slowly
to a low dim and dark-red zone of lava,
spurred,
peaked,
domed by volcano cones,
a wild and ragged region,
illimitable as the horizon.

The Yaqui,
if not at fault,
was yet uncertain.

His falcon eyes searched and roved,
and became fixed at length at the southwest,
and toward this he turned his horse.

The great,
fluted saguaros,
fifty,
sixty feet high,
raised columnal forms,
and their branching limbs and curving lines added a grace
to the desert.

It was the low-bushed cactus that made the toil and pain of travel.

Yet these thorny forms were beautiful.

In the basins between the ridges,
to right and left along the floor of low plains the mirage glistened,
wavered,
faded,
vanished--lakes and trees and clouds.

Inverted mountains hung suspended in the lilac air and faint tracery of white-walled cities.

At noon Yaqui halted the cavalcade.

He had selected a field of bisnagi cactus
for the place of rest.

Presently his reason became obvious.

With long,
heavy knife he cut off the tops of these barrel-shaped plants.

He scooped out soft pulp,
and
with stone and hand then began
to pound the deeper pulp into a juicy mass.

When he threw this out there was a little water left,
sweet,
cool water which man and horse shared eagerly.

Thus he made even the desert's fiercest growths minister
to their needs.

But he did not halt long.

Miles of gray-green spiked walls lay between him and that line of ragged,
red lava which manifestly he must reach before dark.

The travel became faster,
straighter.

And the glistening thorns clutched and clung
to leather and cloth and flesh.

The horses reared,
snorted,
balked,
leaped--but they were sent on.

Only Blanco Sol,
the patient,
the plodding,
the indomitable,
needed no goad or spur.

Waves and scarfs and wreaths of heat smoked up from the sand.

Mercedes reeled in her saddle.

Thorne bade her drink,
bathed her face,
supported her,
and then gave way
to Ladd,
who took the girl
with him on Torre's broad back.

Yaqui's unflagging purpose and iron arm were bitter and hateful
to the proud and haughty spirit of Blanco Diablo.

For once Belding's great white devil had met his master.

He fought rider,
bit,
bridle,
cactus,
sand--and yet he went on and on,
zigzagging,
turning,
winding,
crashing through the barbed growths.

The middle of the afternoon saw Thorne reeling in his saddle,
and then,
wherever possible,
Gale's powerful arm lent him strength
to hold his seat.

The giant cactus came
to be only so in name.

These saguaros were thinning out,
growing stunted,
and most of them were single columns.

Gradually other cactus forms showed a harder struggle
for existence,
and the spaces of sand between were wider.

But now the dreaded,
glistening choya began
to show pale and gray and white upon the rising slope.

Round-topped hills,
sunset-colored above,
blue-black below,
intervened
to hide the distant spurs and peaks.

Mile and mile long tongues of red lava streamed out between the hills and wound down
to stop abruptly upon the slope.

The fugitives were entering a desolate,
burned-out world.

It rose above them in limitless,
gradual ascent and spread wide
to east and west.

Then the waste of sand began
to yield
to cinders.

The horses sank
to their fetlocks as they toiled on.

A fine,
choking dust blew back from the leaders,
and men coughed and horses snorted.

The huge,
round hills rose smooth,
symmetrical,
colored as if the setting sun was shining on bare,
blue-black surfaces.

But the sun was now behind the hills.

In between ran the streams of lava.

The horsemen skirted the edge between slope of hill and perpendicular ragged wall.

This red lava seemed
to have flowed and hardened there only yesterday.

It was broken sharp,
dull rust color,
full of cracks and caves and crevices,
and everywhere upon its jagged surface gew the white-thorned choya.

Again twilight encompassed the travelers.

But there was still light enough
for Gale
to see the constricted passage open into a wide,
deep space where the dull color was relieved by the gray of gnarled and dwarfed mesquite.

Blanco Sol,
keenest of scent,
whistled his welcome herald of water.

The other horses answered,
quickened their gait.

Gale smelled it,
too,
sweet,
cool,
damp on the dry air.

Yaqui turned the corner of a pocket in the lava wall.

The file of white horses rounded the corner after him.

And Gale,
coming last,
saw the pale,
glancing gleam of a pool of water beautiful in the twilight.

Next day the Yaqui's relentless driving demand on the horses was no longer in evidence.

He lost no time,
but he did not hasten.

His course wound between low cinder dunes which limited their view of the surrounding country.

These dunes finally sank down
to a black floor as hard as flint
with tongues of lava
to the left,
and
to the right the slow descent into the cactus plain.

Yaqui was now traveling due west.

It was Gale's idea that the Indian was skirting the first sharp-toothed slope of a vast volcanic plateau which formed the western half of the Sonora Desert and extended
to the Gulf of California.

Travel was slow,
but not exhausting
for rider or beast.

A little sand and meager grass gave a grayish tinge
to the strip of black ground between lava and plain.

That day,
as the manner rather than the purpose of the Yaqui changed,
so there seemed
to be subtle differences in the others of the party.

Gale himself lost a certain sickening dread,
which had not been
for himself,
but
for Mercedes and Nell,
and Thorne and the rangers.

Jim,
good-natured again,
might have been patrolling the boundary line.

Ladd lost his taciturnity and his gloom changed
to a cool,
careless air.

A mood that was almost defiance began
to be manifested in Thorne.

It was in Mercedes,
however,
that Gale marked the most significant change.

Her collapse the preceding day might never have been.

She was lame and sore;
she rode her saddle sidewise,
and often she had
to be rested and helped;
but she had found a reserve fund of strength,
and her mental condition was not the same that it had been.

Her burden of fear had been lifted.

Gale saw in her the difference he always felt in himself after a few days in the desert.

Already Mercedes and he,
and all of them,
had begun
to respond
to the desert spirit.

Moreover,
Yaqui's strange influence must have been a call
to the primitive.

Thirty miles of easy stages brought the fugitives
to another waterhold,
a little round pocket under the heaved-up edge of lava.

There was spare,
short,
bleached grass
for the horses,
but no wood
for a fire.

This night there was question and reply,
conjecture,
doubt,
opinion,
and conviction expressed by the men of the party.

But the Indian,
who alone could have told where they were,
where they were going,
what chance they had
to escape,
maintained his stoical silence.

Gale took the early watch,
Ladd the midnight one,
and Lash that of the morning.

They day broke rosy,
glorious,
cold as ice.

Action was necessary
to make useful benumbed hands and feet.

Mercedes was fed while yet wrapped in blankets.

Then,
while the packs were being put on and horses saddled,
she walked up and down,
slapping her hands,
warming her ears.

The rose color of the dawn was in her cheeks,
and the wonderful clearness of desert light in her eyes.

Thorne's eyes sought her constantly.

The rangers watched her.

The Yaqui bent his glance upon her only seldom;
but when he did look it seemed that his strange,
fixed,
and inscrutable face was about
to break into a smile.

Yet that never happened.

Gale himself was surprised
to find how often his own glance found the slender,
dark,
beautiful Spaniard.

Was this because of her beauty?

he wondered.

He thought not altogether.

Mercedes was a woman.

She represented something in life that men of all races
for thousands of years had loved
to see and own,
to revere and debase,
to fight and die for.

It was a significant index
to the day's travel that Yaqui should keep a blanket from the pack and tear it into strips
to bind the legs of the horses.

It meant the dreaded choya and the knife-edged lava.

That Yaqui did not mount Diablo was still more significant.

Mercedes must ride;
but the others must walk.

The Indian led off into one of the gray notches between the tumbled streams of lava.

These streams were about thirty feet high,
a rotting mass of splintered lava,
rougher than any other kind of roughness in the world.

At the apex of the notch,
where two streams met,
a narrow gully wound and ascended.

Gale caught sight of the dim,
pale shadow of a one-time trail.

Near at hand it was invisible;
he had
to look far ahead
to catch the faint tracery.

Yaqui led Diablo into it,
and then began the most laborious and vexatious and painful of all slow travel.

Once up on top of that lava bed,
Gale saw stretching away,
breaking into millions of crests and ruts,
a vast,
red-black field sweeping onward and upward,
with ragged,
low ridges and mounds and spurs leading higher and higher
to a great,
split escarpment wall,
above which dim peaks shone hazily blue in the distance.

He looked no more in that direction.

To keep his foothold,
to save his horse,
cost him all energy and attention.

The course was marked out
for him in the tracks of the other horses.

He had only
to follow.

But nothing could have been more difficult.

The disintegrating surface of a lava bed was at once the roughest,
the hardest,
the meanest,
the cruelest,
the most deceitful kind of ground
to travel.

It was rotten,
yet it had corners as hard and sharp as pikes.

It was rough,
yet as slippery as ice.

If there was a foot of level surface,
that space would be one
to break through under a horse's hoofs.

It was seamed,
lined,
cracked,
ridged,
knotted iron.

This lava bed resembled a tremendously magnified clinker.

It had been a running sea of molten flint,
boiling,
bubbling,
spouting,
and it had burst its surface into a million sharp facets as it hardened.

The color was dull,
dark,
angry red,
like no other red,
inflaming
to the eye.

The millions of minute crevices were dominated by deep fissures and holes,
ragged and rough beyond all comparison.

The fugitives made slow progress.

They picked a cautious,
winding way
to and fro in little steps here and there along the many twists of the trail,
up and down the unavoidable depressions,
round and round the holes.

At noon,
so winding back upon itself had been their course,
they appeared
to have come only a short distance up the lava slope.

It was rough work
for them;
it was terrible work
for the horses.

Blanco Diablo refused
to answer
to the power of the Yaqui.

He balked,
he plunged,
he bit and kicked.

He had
to be pulled and beaten over many places.

Mercedes's horse almost threw her,
and she was put upon Blanco Sol.

The white charger snorted a protest,
then,
obedient
to Gale's stern call,
patiently lowered his noble head and pawed the lava
for a footing that would hold.

The lava caused Gale toil and worry and pain,
but he hated the choyas.

As the travel progressed this species of cactus increased in number of plants and in size.

Everywhere the red lava was spotted
with little round patches of glistening frosty white.

And under every bunch of choya,
along and in the trail,
were the discarded joints,
like little frosty pine cones covered
with spines.

It was utterly impossible always
to be on the lookout
for these,
and when Gale stepped on one,
often as not the steel-like thorns pierced leather and flesh.

Gale came almost
to believe what he had heard claimed by desert travelers--that the choya was alive and leaped at man or beast.

Certain it was when Gale passed one,
if he did not put all attention
to avoiding it,
he was hooked through his chaps and held by barbed thorns.

The pain was almost unendurable.

It was like no other.

It burned,
stung,
beat--almost seemed
to freeze.

It made useless arm or leg.

It made him bite his tongue
to keep from crying out.

It made the sweat roll off him.

It made him sick.

Moreover,
bad as the choya was
for man,
it was infinitely worse
for beast.

A jagged stab from this poisoned cactus was the only thing Blanco Sol could not stand.

Many times that day,
before he carried Mercedes,
he had wildly snorted,
and then stood trembling while Gale picked broken thorns from the muscular legs.

But after Mercedes had been put upon Sol Gale made sure no choya touched him.

The afternoon passed like the morning,
in ceaseless winding and twisting and climbing along this abandoned trail.

Gale saw many waterholes,
mostly dry,
some containing water,
all of them catch-basins,
full only after rainy season.

Little ugly bunched bushes,
that Gale scarcely recognized as mesquites,
grew near these holes;
also stunted greasewood and prickly pear.

There was no grass,
and the choya alone flourished in that hard soil.

Darkness overtook the party as they unpacked beside a pool of water deep under an overhanging shelf of lava.

It had been a hard day.

The horses drank their fill,
and then stood patiently
with drooping heads.

Hunger and thirst appeased,
and a warm fire cheered the weary and foot-sore fugitives.

Yaqui said,
"Sleep."

And so another night passed.

Upon the following morning,
ten miles or more up the slow-ascending lava slope,
Gale's attention was called from his somber search
for the less rough places in the trail.

"Dick,
why does Yaqui look back?"
asked Mercedes.

Gale was startled.

"Does he?"
"Every little while,"
replied Mercedes.

Gale was in the rear of all the other horses,
so as
to take,
for Mercedes's sake,
the advantage of the broken trail.

Yaqui was leading Diablo,
winding around a break.

His head was bent as he stepped slowly and unevenly upon the lava.

Gale turned
to look back,
the first time in several days.

The mighty hollow of the desert below seemed wide strip of red--wide strip of green--wide strip of gray--streaking
to purple peaks.

It was all too vast,
too mighty
to grasp any little details.

He thought,
of course,
of Rojas in certain pursuit;
but it seemed absurded
to look
for him.

Yaqui led on,
and Gale often glanced up from his task
to watch the Indian.

Presently he saw him stop,
turn,
and look back.

Ladd did likewise,
and then Jim and Thorne.

Gale found the desire irresistible.

Thereafter he often rested Blanco Sol,
and looked back the while.

He had his field-glass,
but did not choose
to use it.

"Rojas will follow,"
said Mercedes.

Gale regarded her in amaze.

The tone of her voice had been indefinable.

If there were fear then he failed
to detect it.

She was gazing back down the colored slope,
and something about her,
perhaps the steady,
falcon gaze of her magnificent eyes,
reminded him of Yaqui.

Many times during the ensuing hour the Indian faced about,
and always his followers did likewise.

It was high noon,
with the sun beating hot and the lava radiating heat,
when Yaqui halted
for a rest.

The place selected was a ridge of lava,
almost a promontory,
considering its outlook.

The horses bunched here and drooped their heads.

The rangers were about
to slip the packs and remove saddles when Yaqui restrained them.

He fixed a changeless,
gleaming gaze on the slow descent;
but did not seem
to look afar.

Suddenly he uttered his strange cry--the one Gale considered involuntary,
or else significant of some tribal trait or feeling.

It was incomprehensible,
but no one could have doubted its potency.

Yaqui pointed down the lava slope,
pointed
with finger and arm and neck and head--his whole body was instinct
with direction.

His whole being seemed
to have been animated and then frozen.

His posture could not have been misunderstood,
yet his expression had not altered.

Gale had never seen the Indian's face change its hard,
red-bronze calm.

It was the color and the flintiness and the character of the lava at his feet.

"Shore he sees somethin',"
said Ladd.

"But my eyes are not good."

"I reckon I ain't sure of mine,"
replied Jim.

"I'm bothered by a dim movin'
streak down there."

Thorne gazed eagerly down as he stood beside Mercedes,
who sat motionless facing the slope.

Gale looked and looked till he hurt his eyes.

Then he took his glass out of its case on Sol's saddle.

There appeared
to be nothing upon the lava but the innumerable dots of choya shining in the sun.

Gale swept his glass slowly forward and back.

Then into a nearer field of vision crept a long white-and-black line of horses and men.

Without a word he handed the glass
to Ladd.

The ranger used it,
muttering
to himself.

"They're on the lava fifteen miles down in an air line,"
he said,
presently.

"Jim,
shore they're twice that an'
more accordin'
to the trail."

Jim had his look and replied:

"I reckon we're a day an'
a night in the lead."

"Is it Rojas?"
burst out Thorne,
with set jaw.

"Yes,
Thorne.

It's Rojas and a dozen men or more,"
replied Gale,
and he looked up at Mercedes.

She was transformed.

She might have been a medieval princess embodying all the Spanish power and passion of that time,
breathing revenge,
hate,
unquenchable spirit of fire.

If her beauty had been wonderful in her helpless and appealing moments,
now,
when she looked back white-faced and flame-eyed,
it was transcendant.

Gale drew a long,
deep breath.

The mood which had presaged pursuit,
strife,
blood on this somber desert,
returned
to him tenfold.

He saw Thorne's face corded by black veins,
and his teeth exposed like those of a snarling wolf.

These rangers,
who had coolly risked death many times,
and had dealt it often,
were white as no fear or pain could have made them.

Then,
on the moment,
Yaqui raised his hand,
not clenched or doubled tight,
but curled rigid like an eagle's claw;
and he shook it in a strange,
slow gesture which was menacing and terrible.

It was the woman that called
to the depths of these men.

And their passion
to kill and
to save was surpassed only by the wild hate which was yet love,
the unfathomable emotion of a peon slave.

Gale marveled at it,
while he felt his whole being cold and tense,
as he turned once more
to follow in the tracks of his leaders.

The fight predicted by Belding was at hand.

What a fight that must be! Rojas was traveling light and fast.

He was gaining.

He had bought his men
with gold,
with extravagant promises,
perhaps
with offers of the body and blood of an aristocrat hateful
to their kind.

Lastly,
there was the wild,
desolate environment,
a tortured wilderness of jagged lava and poisoned choya,
a lonely,
fierce,
and repellant world,
a red stage most somberly and fittingly colored
for a supreme struggle between men.

Yaqui looked back no more.

Mercedes looked back no more.

But the others looked,
and the time came when Gale saw the creeping line of pursuers
with naked eyes.

A level line above marked the rim of the plateau.

Sand began
to show in the little lava pits.

On and upward toiled the cavalcade,
still very slowly advancing.

At last Yaqui reached the rim.

He stood
with his hand on Blanco Diablo;
and both were silhouetted against the sky.

That was the outlook
for a Yaqui.

And his great horse,
dazzlingly white in the sunlight,
with head wildly and proudly erect,
mane and tail flying in the wind,
made a magnificent picture.

The others toiled on and upward,
and at last Gale led Blanco Sol over the rim.

Then all looked down the red slope.

But shadows were gathering there and no moving line could be seen.

Yaqui mounted and wheeled Diablo away.

The others followed.

Gale saw that the plateau was no more than a vast field of low,
ragged circles,
levels,
mounds,
cones,
and whirls of lava.

The lava was of a darker red than that down upon the slope,
and it was harder than flint.

In places fine sand and cinders covered the uneven floor.

Strange varieties of cactus vied
with the omnipresent choya.

Yaqui,
however,
found ground that his horse covered at a swift walk.

But there was only an hour,
perhaps,
of this comparatively easy going.

Then the Yaqui led them into a zone of craters.

The top of the earth seemed
to have been blown out in holes from a few rods in width
to large craters,
some shallow,
others deep,
and all red as fire.

Yaqui circled close
to abysses which yawned sheer from a level surface,
and he appeared always
to be turning upon his course
to avoid them.

The plateau had now a considerable dip
to the west.

Gale marked the slow heave and ripple of the ocean of lava
to the south,
where high,
rounded peaks marked the center of this volcanic region.

The uneven nature of the slope westward prevented any extended view,
until suddenly the fugitives emerged from a rugged break
to come upon a sublime and awe-inspiring spectacle.

They were upon a high point of the western slope of the plateau.

It was a slope,
but so many leagues long in its descent that only from a height could any slant have been perceptible.

Yaqui and his white horse stood upon the brink of a crater miles in circumference,
a thousand feet deep,
with its red walls patched in frost-colored spots by the silvery choya.

The giant tracery of lava streams waved down the slope
to disappear in undulating sand dunes.

And these bordered a seemingly endless arm of blue sea.

This was the Gulf of California.

Beyond the Gulf rose dim,
bold mountains,
and above them hung the setting sun,
dusky red,
flooding all that barren empire
with a sinister light.

It was strange
to Gale then,
and perhaps
to the others,
to see their guide lead Diablo into a smooth and well-worn trail along the rim of the awful crater.

Gale looked down into that red chasm.

It resembled an inferno.

The dark cliffs upon the opposite side were veiled in blue haze that seemed like smoke.

Here Yaqui was at home.

He moved and looked about him as a man coming at last into his own.

Gale saw him stop and gaze out over that red-ribbed void
to the Gulf.

Gale devined that somewhere along this crater of hell the Yaqui would make his final stand;
and one look into his strange,
inscrutable eyes made imagination picture a fitting doom
for the pursuing Rojas.

XII The Crater of Hell The trail led along a gigantic fissure in the side of the crater,
and then down and down into a red-walled,
blue hazed labyrinth.

Presently Gale,
upon turning a sharp corner,
was utterly amazed
to see that the split in the lava sloped out and widened into an arroyo.

It was so green and soft and beautiful in all the angry,
contorted red surrounding that Gale could scarcely credit his sight.

Blanco Sol whistled his welcome
to the scent of water.

Then Gale saw a great hole,
a pit in the shiny lava,
a dark,
cool,
shady well.

There was evidence of the fact that at flood seasons the water had an outlet into the arroyo.

The soil appeared
to be a fine sand,
in which a reddish tinge predominated;
and it was abundantly covered
with a long grass,
still partly green.

Mesquites and palo verdes dotted the arroyo and gradually closed in thickets that obstructed the view.

"Shore it all beats me,"
exclaimed Ladd.

"What a place
to hole-up in! We could have hid here
for a long time.

Boys,
I saw mountain sheep,
the real old genuine Rocky Mountain bighorn.

What do you think of that?"
"I reckon it's a Yaqui hunting-ground,"
replied Lash.

"That trail we hit must be hundreds of years old.

It's worn deep and smooth in iron lava."

"Well,
all I got
to say is--Beldin'
was shore right about the Indian.

An'
I can see Rojas's finish somewhere up along that awful hell-hole."

Camp was made on a level spot.

Yaqui took the horses
to water,
and then turned them loose in the arroyo.

It was a tired and somber group that sat down
to eat.

The strain of suspense equaled the wearing effects of the long ride.

Mercedes was calm,
but her great dark eyes burned in her white face.

Yaqui watched her.

The others looked at her
with unspoken pride.

Presently Thorne wrapped her in his blankets,
and she seemed
to fall asleep at once.

Twilight deepened.

The campfire blazed brighter.

A cool wind played
with Mercedes's black hair,
waving strands across her brow.

Little of Yaqui's purpose or plan could be elicited from him.

But the look of him was enough
to satisfy even Thorne.

He leaned against a pile of wood,
which he had collected,
and his gloomy gaze pierced the campfire,
and at long intervals strayed over the motionless form of the Spanish girl.

The rangers and Thorne,
however,
talked in low tones.

It was absolutely impossible
for Rojas and his men
to reach the waterhole before noon of the next day.

And long before that time the fugitives would have decided on a plan of defense.

What that defense would be,
and where it would be made,
were matters over which the men considered gravely.

Ladd averred the Yaqui would put them into an impregnable position,
that at the same time would prove a death-trap
for their pursuers.

They exhausted every possibility,
and then,
tired as they were,
still kept on talking.

"What stuns me is that Rojas stuck
to our trail,"
said Thorne,
his lined and haggard face expressive of dark passion.

"He has followed us into this fearful desert.

He'll lose men,
horses,
perhaps his life.

He's only a bandit,
and he stands
to win no gold.

If he ever gets out of here it
'll be by herculean labor and by terrible hardship.

All
for a poor little helpless woman--just a woman! My God,
I can't understand it."

"Shore--just a woman,"
replied Ladd,
solemnly nodding his head.

Then there was a long silence during which the men gazed into the fire.

Each,
perhaps,
had some vague conception of the enormity of Rojas's love or hate--some faint and amazing glimpse of the gulf of human passion.

Those were cold,
hard,
grim faces upon which the light flickered.

"Sleep,"
said the Yaqui.

Thorne rolled in his blanket close beside Mercedes.

Then one by one the rangers stretched out,
feet
to the fire.

Gale found that he could not sleep.

His eyes were weary,
but they would not stay shut;
his body ached
for rest,
yet he could not lie still.

The night was so somber,
so gloomy,
and the lava-encompassed arroyo full of shadows.

The dark velvet sky,
fretted
with white fire,
seemed
to be close.

There was an absolute silence,
as of death.

Nothing moved--nothing outside of Gale's body appeared
to live.

The Yaqui sat like an image carved out of lava.

The others lay prone and quiet.

Would another night see any of them lie that way,
quiet forever?

Gale felt a ripple pass over him that was at once a shudder and a contraction of muscles.

Used as he was
to the desert and its oppression,
why should he feel to-night as if the weight of its lava and the burden of its mystery were bearing him down?

He sat up after a while and again watched the fire.

Nell's sweet face floated like a wraith in the pale smoke--glowed and flushed and smiled in the embers.

Other faces shone there--his sister's --that of his mother.

Gale shook off the tender memories.

This desolate wilderness
with its forbidding silence and its dark promise of hell on the morrow--this was not the place
to unnerve oneself
with thoughts of love and home.

But the torturing paradox of the thing was that this was just the place and just the night
for a man
to be haunted.

By and by Gale rose and walked down a shadowy aisle between the mesquites.

On his way back the Yaqui joined him.

Gale was not surprised.

He had become used
to the Indian's strange guardianship.

But now,
perhaps because of Gale's poignancy of thought,
the contending tides of love and regret,
the deep,
burning premonition of deadly strife,
he was moved
to keener scrutiny of the Yaqui.

That,
of course,
was futile.

The Indian was impenetrable,
silent,
strange.

But suddenly,
inexplicably,
Gale felt Yaqui's human quality.

It was aloof,
as was everything about this Indian;
but it was there.

This savage walked silently beside him,
without glance or touch or word.

His thought was as inscrutable as if mind had never awakened in his race.

Yet Gale was conscious of greatness,
and,
somehow,
he was reminded of the Indian's story.

His home had been desolated,
his people carried off
to slavery,
his wife and children separated from him
to die.

What had life meant
to the Yaqui?

What had been in his heart?

What was now in his mind?

Gale could not answer these questions.

But the difference between himself and Yaqui,
which he had vaguely felt as that between savage and civilized men,
faded out of his mind forever.

Yaqui might have considered he owed Gale a debt,
and,
with a Yaqui's austere and noble fidelity
to honor,
he meant
to pay it.

Nevertheless,
this was not the thing Gale found in the Indian's silent presence.

Accepting the desert
with its subtle and inconceivable influence,
Gale felt that the savage and the white man had been bound in a tie which was no less brotherly because it could not be comprehended.

Toward dawn Gale managed
to get some sleep.

Then the morning broke
with the sun hidden back of the uplift of the plateau.

The horses trooped up the arroyo and snorted
for water.

After a hurried breakfast the packs were hidden in holes in the lava.

The saddles were left where they were,
and the horses allowed
to graze and wander at will.

Canteens were filled,
a small bag of food was packed,
and blankets made into a bundle.

Then Yaqui faced the steep ascent of the lava slope.

The trail he followed led up on the right side of the fissure,
opposite
to the one he had come down.

It was a steep climb,
and encumbered as the men were they made but slow progress.

Mercedes had
to be lifted up smooth steps and across crevices.

They passed places where the rims of the fissure were but a few yards apart.

At length the rims widened out and the red,
smoky crater yawned beneath.

Yaqui left the trail and began clambering down over the rough and twisted convolutions of lava which formed the rim.

Sometimes he hung sheer over the precipice.

It was
with extreme difficulty that the party followed him.

Mercedes had
to be held on narrow,
foot-wide ledges.

The choya was there
to hinder passage.

Finally the Indian halted upon a narrow bench of flat,
smooth lava,
and his followers worked
with exceeding care and effort down
to his position.

At the back of this bench,
between bunches of choya,
was a niche,
a shallow cave
with floor lined apparently
with mold.

Ladd said the place was a refuge which had been inhabited by mountain sheep
for many years.

Yaqui spread blankets inside,
left the canteen and the sack of food,
and
with a gesture at once humble,
yet that of a chief,
he invited Mercedes
to enter.

A few more gestures and fewer words disclosed his plan.

In this inaccessible nook Mercedes was
to be hidden.

The men were
to go around upon the opposite rim,
and block the trail leading down
to the waterhole.

Gale marked the nature of this eyrie.

It was the wildest and most rugged place he had ever stepped upon.

Only a sheep could have climbed up the wall above or along the slanting shelf of lava beyond.

Below glistened a whole bank of choya,
frosty in the sunlight,
and it overhung an apparently bottomless abyss.

Ladd chose the smallest gun in the party and gave it
to Mercedes.

"Shore it's best
to go the limit on bein'
ready,"
he said,
simply.

"The chances are you'll never need it.

But if you do--"
He left off there,
and his break was significant.

Mercedes answered him
with a fearless and indomitable flash of eyes.

Thorne was the only one who showed any shaken nerve.

His leave-taking of his wife was affecting and hurried.

Then he and the rangers carefully stepped in the tracks of the Yaqui.

They climbed up
to the level of the rim and went along the edge.

When they reached the fissure and came upon its narrowest point,
Yaqui showed in his actions that he meant
to leap it.

Ladd restrained the Indian.

They then continued along the rim till they reached several bridges of lava which crossed it.

The fissures was deep in some parts,
choked in others.

Evidently the crater had no direct outlet into the arroyo below.

Its bottom,
however,
must have been far beneath the level of the waterhole.

After the fissure was crossed the trail was soon found.

Here it ran back from the rim.

Yaqui waved his hand
to the right,
where along the corrugated slope of the crater there were holes and crevices and coverts
for a hundred men.

Yaqui strode on up the trail toward a higher point,
where presently his dark figure stood motionless against the sky.

The rangers and Thorne selected a deep depression,
out of which led several ruts deep enough
for cover.

According
to Ladd it was as good a place as any,
perhaps not so hidden as others,
but freer from the dreaded choya.

Here the men laid down rifles and guns,
and,
removing their heavy cartridge belts,
settled down
to wait.

Their location was close
to the rim wall and probably five hundred yards from the opposite rim,
which was now seen
to be considerably below them.

The glaring red cliff presented a deceitful and baffling appearance.

It had a thousand ledges and holes in its surfaces,
and one moment it looked perpendicular and the next there seemed
to be a long slant.

Thorne pointed out where he thought Mercedes was hidden;
Ladd selected another place,
and Lash still another.

Gale searched
for the bank of choya he had seen under the bench where Mercedes's retreat lay,
and when he found it the others disputed his opinion.

Then Gale brought his field glass into requisition,
proving that he was right.

Once located and fixed in sight,
the white patch of choya,
the bench,
and the sheep eyrie stood out from the other features of that rugged wall.

But all the men were agreed that Yaqui had hidden Mercedes where only the eyes of a vulture could have found her.

Jim Lash crawled into a little strip of shade and bided the time tranquilly.

Ladd was restless and impatient and watchful,
every little while rising
to look up the far-reaching slope,
and then
to the right,
where Yaqui's dark figure stood out from a high point of the rim.

Thorne grew silent,
and seemed consumed by a slow,
sullen rage.

Gale was neither calm nor free of a gnawing suspense nor of a waiting wrath.

But as best he could he put the pending action out of mind.

It came over him all of a sudden that he had not grasped the stupendous nature of this desert setting.

There was the measureless red slope,
its lower ridges finally sinking into white sand dunes toward the blue sea.

The cold,
sparkling light,
the white sun,
the deep azure of sky,
the feeling of boundless expanse all around him--these meant high altitude.

Southward the barren red simply merged into distance.

The field of craters rose in high,
dark wheels toward the dominating peaks.

When Gale withdrew his gaze from the magnitude of these spaces and heights the crater beneath him seemed dwarfed.

Yet while he gazed it spread and deepened and multiplied its ragged lines.

No,
he could not grasp the meaning of size or distance here.

There was too much
to stun the sight.

But the mood in which nature had created this convulsed world of lava seized hold upon him.

Meanwhile the hours passed.

As the sun climbed the clear,
steely lights vanished,
the blue hazes deepened,
and slowly the glistening surfaces of lava turned redder.

Ladd was concerned
to discover that Yaqui was missing from his outlook upon the high point.

Jim Lash came out of the shady crevice,
and stood up
to buckle on his cartridge belt.

His narrow,
gray glance slowly roved from the height of lava down along the slope,
paused in doubt,
and then swept on
to resurvey the whole vast eastern dip of the plateau.

"I reckon my eyes are pore,"
he said.

"Mebbe it's this damn red glare.

Anyway,
what's them creepin'
spots up there?"
"Shore I seen them.

Mountain sheep,"
replied Ladd.

"Guess again,
Laddy.

Dick,
I reckon you'd better flash the glass up the slope."

Gale adjusted the field glass and began
to search the lava,
beginning close at hand and working away from him.

Presently the glass became stationary.

"I see half a dozen small animals,
brown in color.

They look like sheep.

But I couldn't distinguish mountain sheep from antelope."

"Shore they're bighorn,"
said Laddy.

"I reckon if you'll pull around
to the east an'
search under that long wall of lava--there--you'll see what I see,"
added Jim.

The glass climbed and circled,
wavered an instant,
then fixed steady as a rock.

There was a breathless silence.

"Fourteen horses--two packed--some mounted--others without riders,
and lame,"
said Gale,
slowly.

Yaqui appeared far up the trail,
coming swiftly.

Presently he saw the rangers and halted
to wave his arms and point.

Then he vanished as if the lava had opened beneath him.

"Lemme that glass,"
suddenly said Jim Lash.

"I'm seein'
red,
I tell you....Well,
pore as my eyes are they had it right.

Rojas an'
his outfit have left the trail."

"Jim,
you ain't meanin'
they've taken
to that awful slope?"
queried Ladd.

"I sure do.

There they are--still comin',
but goin'
down,
too."

"Mebbe Rojas is crazy,
but it begins
to look like he--"
"Laddy,
I'll be danged if the Greaser bunch hasn't vamoosed.

Gone out of sight! Right there not a half mile away,
the whole caboodle--gone!"
"Shore they're behind a crust or have gone down into a rut,"
suggested Ladd.

"They'll show again in a minute.

Look sharp,
boys,
for I'm figgerin'
Rojas
'll spread his men."

Minutes passed,
but nothing moved upon the slope.

Each man crawled up
to a vantage point along the crest of rotting lava.

The watchers were careful
to peer through little notches or from behind a spur,
and the constricted nature of their hiding-place kept them close together.

Ladd's muttering grew into a growl,
then lapsed into the silence that marked his companions.

From time
to time the rangers looked inquiringly at Gale.

The field glass,
however,
like the naked sight,
could not catch the slightest moving object out there upon the lava.

A long hour of slow,
mounting suspense wore on.

"Shore it's all goin'
to be as queer as the Yaqui,"
said Ladd.

Indeed,
the strange mien,
the silent action,
the somber character of the Indian had not been without effect upon the minds of the men.

Then the weird,
desolate,
tragic scene added
to the vague sense of mystery.

And now the disappearance of Rojas's band,
the long wait in the silence,
the boding certainty of invisible foes crawling,
circling closer and closer,
lent
to the situation a final touch that made it unreal.

"I'm reckonin'
there's a mind behind them Greasers,"
replied Jim.

"Or mebbe we ain't done Rojas credit...If somethin'
would only come off!"
That Lash,
the coolest,
most provokingly nonchalant of men in times of peril,
should begin
to show a nervous strain was all the more indicative of a suble pervading unreality.

"Boys,
look sharp!"
suddenly called Lash.

"Low down
to the left --mebbe three hundred yards.

See,
along by them seams of lava --behind the choyas.

First off I thought it was a sheep.

But it's the Yaqui!...Crawlin'
swift as a lizard! Can't you see him?"
It was a full moment before Jim's companions could locate the Indian.

Flat as a snake Yaqui wound himself along
with incredible rapidity.

His advance was all the more remarkable
for the fact that he appeared
to pass directly under the dreaded choyas.

Sometimes he paused
to lift his head and look.

He was directly in line
with a huge whorl of lava that rose higher than any point on the slope.

This spur was a quarter of a mile from the position of the rangers.

"Shore he's headin'
for that high place,"
said Ladd.

"He's goin'
slow now.

There,
he's stopped behind some choyas.

He's gettin'
up--no,
he's kneelin'....Now what the hell!"
"Laddy,
take a peek at the side of that lava ridge,"
sharply called Jim.

"I guess mebbe somethin'
ain't comin'
off.

See! There's Rojas an'
his outfit climbin'.

Don't make out no hosses....Dick,
use your glass an'
tell us what's doin'.

I'll watch Yaqui an'
tell you what his move means."

Clearly and distinctly,
almost as if he could have touched them,
Gale had Rojas and his followers in sight.

They were toiling up the rough lava on foot.

They were heavily armed.

Spurs,
chaps,
jackets,
scarfs were not in evidence.

Gale saw the lean,
swarthy faces,
the black,
straggly hair,
the ragged,
soiled garments which had once been white.

"They're almost up now,"
Gale was saying.

"There! They halt on top.

I see Rojas.

He looks wild.

By----! fellows,
an Indian! ...It's a Papago.

Belding's old herder!...The Indian points-- this way--then down.

He's showing Rojas the lay of the trail."

"Boys,
Yaqui's in range of that bunch,"
said Jim,
swiftly.

"He's raisin'
his rifle slow--Lord,
how slow he is!...He's covered some one.

Which one I can't say.

But I think he'll pick Rojas."

"The Yaqui can shoot.

He'll pick Rojas,"
added Gale,
grimly.

"Rojas--yes--yes!"
cried Thorne,
in passion of suspense.

"Not on your life!"
Ladd's voice cut in
with scorn.

"Gentlemen,
you can gamble Yaqui
'll kill the Papago.

That traitor Indian knows these sheep haunts.

He's tellin'
Rojas--"
A sharp rifle shot rang out.

"Laddy's right,"
called Gale.

"The Papago's hit--his arm falls--There,
he tumbles!"
More shots rang out.

Yaqui was seen standing erect firing rapidly at the darting Mexicans.

For all Gale could make out no second bullet took effect.

Rojas and his men vanished behind the bulge of lava.

Then Yaqui deliberately backed away from his postion.

He made no effort
to run or hide.

Evidently he watched cautiously
for signs of pursuers in the ruts and behind the choyas.

Presently he turned and came straight toward the position of the rangers,
sheered off perhaps a hundred paces below it,
and disappeared in a crevice.

Plainly his intention was
to draw pursuers within rifle shot.

"Shore,
Jim,
you had your wish.

Somethin'
come off,"
said Ladd.

"An'
I'm sayin'
thank God
for the Yaqui! That Papago
'd have ruined us.

Even so,
mebbe he's told Rojas more'n enough
to make us sweat blood."

"He had a chance
to kill Rojas,"
cried out the drawn-faced,
passionate Thorne.

"He didn't take it!...He didn't take it!"
Only Ladd appeared
to be able
to answer the cavalryman's poignant cry.

"Listen,
son,"
he said,
and his voice rang.

"We-all know how you feel.

An'
if I'd had that one shot never in the world could I have picked the Papago guide.

I'd have had
to kill Rojas.

That's the white man of it.

But Yaqui was right.

Only an Indian could have done it.

You can gamble the Papago alive meant slim chance
for us.

Because he'd led straight
to where Mercedes is hidden,
an'
then we'd have left cover
to fight it out...When you come
to think of the Yaqui's hate
for Greasers,
when you just seen him pass up a shot at one--well,
I don't know how
to say what I mean,
but damn me,
my som-brer-ro is off
to the Indian!"
"I reckon so,
an'
I reckon the ball's opened,"
rejoined Lash,
and now that former nervous impatience so unnatural
to him was as if it had never been.

He was smilingly cool,
and his voice had almost a caressing note.

He tapped the breech of his Winchester
with a sinewy brown hand,
and he did not appear
to be addressing any one in particular.

"Yaqui's opened the ball.

Look up your pardners there,
gents,
an'
get ready
to dance."

Another wait set in them,
and judging by the more direct rays of the sun and a receding of the little shadows cast by the choyas,
Gale was of the opinion that it was a long wait.

But it seemed short.

The four men were lying under the bank of a half circular hole in the lava.

It was notched and cracked,
and its rim was fringed by choyas.

It sloped down and opened
to an unobstructed view of the crater.

Gale had the upper position,
fartherest
to the right,
and therefore was best shielded from possible fire from the higher ridges of the rim,
some three hundred yards distant.

Jim came next,
well hidden in a crack.

The positions of Thorne and Ladd were most exposed.

They kept sharp lookout over the uneven rampart of their hiding-place.

The sun passed the zenith,
began
to slope westward,
and
to grow hotter as it sloped.

The men waited and waited.

Gale saw no impatience even in Thorne.

The sultry air seemed
to be laden
with some burden or quality that was at once composed of heat,
menace,
color,
and silence.

Even the light glancing up from the lava seemed red and the silence had substance.

Sometimes Gale felt that it was unbearable.

Yet he made no effort
to break it.

Suddenly this dead stillness was rent by a shot,
clear and stinging,
close at hand.

It was from a rifle,
not a carbine.

With startling quickness a cry followed--a cry that pierced Gale--it was so thin,
so high-keyed,
so different from all other cries.

It was the involuntary human shriek at death.

"Yaqui's called out another pardner,"
said Jim Lash,
laconically.

Carbines began
to crack.

The reports were quick,
light,
like sharp spats without any ring.

Gale peered from behind the edge of his covert.

Above the ragged wave of lava floated faint whitish clouds,
all that was visible of smokeless powder.

Then Gale made out round spots,
dark against the background of red,
and in front of them leaped out small tongues of fire.

Ladd's .405 began to
"spang"
with its beautiful sound of power.

Thorne was firing,
somewhat wildly Gale thought.

Then Jim Lash pushed his Winchester over the rim under a choya,
and between shots Gale could hear him singing:

"Turn the lady,
turn--turn the lady,
turn!...Alaman left!...Swing your pardners!...Forward an'
back!...Turn the lady,
turn!"
Gale got into the fight himself,
not so sure that he hit any of the round,
bobbing objects he aimed at,
but growing sure of himself as action liberated something forced and congested within his breast.

Then over the position of the rangers came a hail of steel bullets.

Those that struck the lava hissed away into the crater;
those that came biting through the choyas made a sound which resembled a sharp ripping of silk.

Bits of cactus stung Gale's face,
and he dreaded the flying thorns more than he did the flying bullets.

"Hold on,
boys,"
called Ladd,
as he crouched down
to reload his rifle.

"Save your shells.

The greasers are spreadin'
on us,
some goin'
down below Yaqui,
others movin'
up
for that high ridge.

When they get up there I'm damned if it won't be hot
for us.

There ain't room
for all of us
to hide here."

Ladd raised himself
to peep over the rim.

Shots were now scattering,
and all appeared
to come from below.

Emboldened by this he rose higher.

A shot from in front,
a rip of bullet through the choya,
a spat of something hitting Ladd's face,
a steel missle hissing onward--these inseparably blended sounds were all registered by Gale's sensitive ear.

With a curse Ladd tumbled down into the hole.

His face showed a great gray blotch,
and starting blood.

Gale felt a sickening assurance of desperate injury
to the ranger.

He ran
to him calling:

"Laddy! Laddy!"
"Shore I an't plugged.

It's a damn choya burr.

The bullet knocked it in my face.

Pull it out!"
The oval,
long-spiked cone was firmly imbedded in Ladd's cheek.

Blood streamed down his face and neck.

Carefully,
yet
with no thought of pain
to himself,
Gale Tried
to pull the cactus joint away.

It was as firm as if it had been nailed there.

That was the damnable feature of the barbed thorns:

once set,
they held on as that strange plant held
to its desert life.

Ladd began
to writhe,
and sweat mingled
with the blood on his face.

He cursed and raved,
and his movements made it almost impossible
for Gale
to do anything.

"Put your knife-blade under an'
tear it out!"
shouted Ladd,
hoarsely.

Thus ordered,
Gale slipped a long blade in between the imbedded thorns,
and
with a powerful jerk literally tore the choya out of Ladd's quivering flesh.

Then,
where the ranger's face was not red and raw,
it certainly was white.

A volley of shots from a different angle was followed by the quick ring of steel bullets striking the lava all around Gale.

His first idea,
as he heard the projectiles sing and hum and whine away into the air,
was that they were coming from above him.

He looked up
to see a number of low,
white and dark knobs upon the high point of lava.

They had not been there before.

Then he saw little,
pale,
leaping tongues of fire.

As he dodged down he distinctly heard a bullet strike Ladd.

At the same instant he seemed
to hear Thorne cry out and fall,
and Lash's boots scrape rapidly away.

Ladd fell backward still holding the .405.

Gale dragged him into the shelter of his own positoin,
and dreading
to look at him,
took up the heavy weapon.

It was
with a kind of savage strength that he gripped the rifle;
and it was
with a cold and deadly intent that he aimed and fired.

The first Greaser huddled low,
let his carbine go clattering down,
and then crawled behind the rim.

The second and third jerked back.

The fourth seemed
to flop up over the crest of lava.

A dark arm reached
for him,
clutched his leg,
tried
to drag him up.

It was in vain.

Wildly grasping at the air the bandit fell,
slid down a steep shelf,
rolled over the rim,
to go hurtling down out of sight.

Fingering the hot rifle
with close-pressed hands,
Gale watched the sky line along the high point of lava.

It remained unbroken.

As his passion left him he feared
to look back at his companions,
and the cold chill returned
to his breast.

"Shore--I'm damn glad--them Greasers ain't usin'
soft-nose bullets,"
drawled a calm voice.

Swift as lightning Gale whirled.

"Laddy! I thought you were done for,"
cried Gale,
with a break in his voice.

"I ain't a-mindin'
the bullet much.

But that choya joint took my nerve,
an'
you can gamble on it.

Dick,
this hole's pretty high up,
ain't it?"
The ranger's blouse was open at the neck,
and on his right shoulder under the collar bone was a small hole just beginning
to bleed.

"Sure it's high,
Laddy,"
replied Gale,
gladly.

"Went clear through,
clean as a whistle!"
He tore a handkerchief into two parts,
made wads,
and pressing them close over the wounds he bound them there
with Ladd's scarf.

"Shore it's funny how a bullet can floor a man an'
then not do any damage,"
said Ladd.

"I felt a zip of wind an'
somethin'
like a pat on my chest an'
down I went.

Well,
so much
for the small caliber
with their steel bullets.

Supposin'
I'd connected
with a .405!"
"Laddy,
I--I'm afraid Thorne's done for,"
whispered Gale.

"He's lying over there in that crack.

I can see part of him.

He doesn't move."

"I was wonderin'
if I'd have
to tell you that.

Dick,
he went down hard hit,
fallin',
you know,
limp an'
soggy.

It was a moral cinch one of us would get it in this fight;
but God! I'm sorry Thorne had
to be the man."

"Laddy,
maybe he's not dead,"
replied Gale.

He called aloud
to his friend.

There was no answer.

Ladd got up,
and,
after peering keenly at the height of lava,
he strode swiftly across the space.

It was only a dozen steps
to the crack in the lava whereThorne had fallen head first.

Ladd bent over,
went
to his knees,
so that Gale saw only his head.

Then he appeared rising
with arms round the cavalryman.

He dragged him across the hole
to the sheltered corner that alone afforded protection.

He had scarcely reached it when a carbine cracked and a bullet struck the flinty lava,
striking sparks,
then singing away into the air.

Thorne was either dead or unconscious,
and Gale,
with a contracting throat and numb heart,
decided
for the former.

Not so Ladd,
who probed the bloody gash on Thorne's temple,
and then felt his breast.

"He's alive an'
not bad hurt.

That bullet hit him glancin'.

Shore them steel bullets are some lucky
for us.

Dick,
you needn't look so glum.

I tell you he ain't bad hurt.

I felt his skull
with my finger.

There's no hole in it.

Wash him off an'
tie-- Wow! did you get the wind of that one?

An'
mebbe it didn't sing off the lava!...

Dick,
look after Thorne now while I--"
The completion of his speech was the stirring ring of the .405,
and then he uttered a laugh that was unpleasant.

"Shore,
greaser,
there's a man's size bullet
for you.

No slim,
sharp-pointed,
steel-jacket nail! I'm takin'
it on me
to believe you're appreciatin'
of the .405,
seein'
as you don't make no fuss."

It was indeed a joy
to Gale
to find that Thorne had not received a wound necessarily fatal,
though it was serious enough.

Gale bathed and bound it,
and laid the cavalryman against the slant of the bank,
his head high
to lessen the probability of bleeding.

As Gale straightened up Ladd muttered low and deep,
and swung the heavy rifle around
to the left.

Far along the slope a figure moved.

Ladd began
to work the lever of the Winchester and
to shoot.

At every shot the heavy firearm sprang up,
and the recoil made Ladd's shoulder give back.

Gale saw the bullets strike the lava behind,
beside,
before the fleeing Mexican,
sending up dull puffs of dust.

On the sixth shot he plunged down out of sight,
either hit or frightened into seeking cover.

"Dick,
mebbe there's one or two left above;
but we needn't figure much on it,"
said Ladd,
as,
loading the rifle,
he jerked his fingers quickly from the hot breech.

"Listen! Jim an'
Yaqui are hittin'
it up lively down below.

I'll sneak down there.

You stay here an'
keep about half an eye peeled up yonder,
an'
keep the rest my way."

Ladd crossed the hole,
climbed down into the deep crack where Thorne had fallen,
and then went stooping along
with only his head above the level.

Presently he disappeared.

Gale,
having little
to fear from the high ridge,
directed most of his attention toward the point beyond which Ladd had gone.

The firing had become desultory,
and the light carbine shots outnumbered the sharp rifle shots five
to one.

Gale made a note of the fact that
for some little time he had not heard the unmistakable report of Jim Lash's automatic.

Then ensued a long interval in which the desert silence seemed
to recover its grip.

The .405 ripped it asunder--spang--spang --spang.

Gale fancied he heard yells.

There were a few pattering shots still farther down the trail.

Gale had an uneasy conviction that Rojas and some of his band might go straight
to the waterhole.

It would be hard
to dislodge even a few men from that retreat.

There seemed a lull in the battle.

Gale ventured
to stand high,
and screened behind choyas,
he swept the three-quarter circle of lava
with his glass.

In the distance he saw horses,
but no riders.

Below him,
down the slope along the crater rim and the trail,
the lava was bare of all except tufts of choya.

Gale gathered assurance.

It looked as if the day was favoring his side.

Then Thorne,
coming partly
to consciousness,
engaged Gale's care.

The cavalryman stirred and moaned,
called
for water,
and then
for Mercedes.

Gale held him back
with a strong hand,
and presently he was once more quiet.

For the first time in hours,
as it seemed,
Gale took note of the physical aspect of his surroundings.

He began
to look upon them without keen gaze strained
for crouching form,
or bobbing head,
or spouting carbine.

Either Gale's sense of color and proportion had become deranged during the fight,
or the encompassing air and the desert had changed.

Even the sun had changed.

It seemed lowering,
oval in shape,
magenta in hue,
and it had a surface that gleamed like oil on water.

Its red rays shone through red haze.

Distances that had formerly ben clearly outlined were now dim,
obscured.

The yawning chasm was not the same.

It circled wider,
redder,
deeper.

It was a weird,
ghastly mouth of hell.

Gale stood fascinated,
unable
to tell how much he saw was real,
how much exaggeration of overwrought emotions.

There was no beauty here,
but an unparalleled grandeur,
a sublime scene of devastation and desolation which might have had its counterpart upon the burned-out moon.

The mood that gripped Gale now added
to its somber portent an unshakable foreboding of calamity.

He wrestled
with the spell as if it were a physical foe.

Reason and intelligence had their voices in his mind;
but the moment was not one wherein these things could wholly control.

He felt life strong withing his breast,
yet there,
a step away,
was death,
yawning,
glaring,
smoky,
red.

It was a moment--an hour
for a savage,
born,
bred,
developed in this scarred and blasted place of jagged depths and red distances and silences never meant
to be broken.

Since Gale was not a savage he fought that call of the red gods which sent him back down the long ages toward his primitive day.

His mind combated his sense of sight and the hearing that seemed useless;
and his mind did not win all the victory.

Something fatal was here,
hanging in the balance,
as the red haze hung along the vast walls of that crater of hell.

Suddenly harsh,
prolonged yells brought him
to his feet,
and the unrealities vanished.

Far down the trails where the crater rims closed in the deep fissure he saw moving forms.

They were three in number.

Two of them ran nimbly across the lava bridge.

The third staggered far behind.

It was Ladd.

He appeared hard hit.

He dragged at the heavy rifle which he seemed unable
to raise.

The yells came from him.

He was calling the Yaqui.

Gale's heart stood still momentarily.

Here,
then,
was the catastrophe! He hardly dared sweep that fissure
with his glass.

The two fleeing figures halted--turned
to fire at Ladd.

Gale recognized the foremost one--small,
compact,
gaudy.

Rojas! The bandit's arm was outstretched.

Puffs of white smoke rose,
and shots rapped out.

When Ladd went down Rojas threw his gun aside and
with a wild yell bounded over the lava.

His companion followed.

A tide of passion,
first hot as fire,
then cold as ice,
rushed over Gale when he saw Rojas take the trail toward Mercedes's hiding-place.

The little bandit appeared
to have the sure-footedness of a mountain sheep.

The Mexican following was not so sure or fast.

He turned back.

Gale heard the trenchant bark of the .405.

Ladd was kneeling.

He shot again--again.

The retreating bandit seemed
to run full into an invisible obstacle,
then fell lax,
inert,
lifeless.

Rojas sped on unmindful of the spurts of dust about him.

Yaqui,
high above Ladd,
was also firing at the bandit.

Then both rifles were emptied.

Rojas turned at a high break in the trail.

He shook a defiant hand,
and his exulting yell pealed faintly
to Gale's ears.

About him there was something desperate,
magnificent.

Then he clambered down the trail.

Ladd dropped the .405,
and rising,
gun in hand,
he staggered toward the bridge of lava.

Before he had crossed it Yaqui came bounding down the slope,
and in one splendid leap he cleared the fissure.

He ran beyond the trail and disappeared on the lava above.

Rojas had not seen this sudden,
darting move of the Indian.

Gale felt himself bitterly powerless
to aid in that pursuit.

He could only watch.

He wondered,
fearfully,
what had become of Lash.

Presently,
when Rojas came out of the cracks and ruts of lava there might be a chance of disabling him by a long shot.

His progress was now slow.

But he was making straight
for Mercedes's hiding-place.

What was it leading him there--an eagle eye,
or hate,
or instinct?

Why did he go on when there could be no turning back
for him on that trail?

Ladd was slow,
heavy,
staggering on the trail;
but he was relentless.

Only death could stop the ranger now.

Surely Rojas must have known that when he chose the trail.

From time
to time Gale caught glimpses of Yaqui's dark figure stealing along the higher rim of the crater.

He was making
for a point above the bandit.

Moments--endless moments dragged by.

The lowering sun colored only the upper half of the crater walls.

Far down the depths were murky blue.

Again Gale felt the insupportable silence.

The red haze became a transparent veil before his eyes.

Sinister,
evil,
brooding,
waiting,
seemed that yawning abyss.

Ladd staggered along the trail,
at times he crawled.

The Yaqui gained;
he might have had wings;
he leaped from jagged crust
to jagged crust;
his sure-footedness was a wonderful thing.

But
for Gale the marvel of that endless period of watching was the purpose of the bandit Rojas.

He had now no weapon.

Gale's glass made this fact plain.

There was death behind him,
death below him,
death before him,
and though he could not have known it,
death above him.

He never faltered--never made a misstep upon the narrow,
flinty trail.

When he reached the lower end of the level ledge Gale's poignant doubt became a certainty.

Rojas had seen Mercedes.

It was incredible,
yet Gale believed it.

Then,
his heart clamped as in an icy vise,
Gale threw forward the Remington,
and sinking on one knee,
began
to shoot.

He emptied the magazine.

Puffs of dust near Rojas did not even make him turn.

As Gale began
to reload he was horror-stricken by a low cry from Thorne.

The cavalryman had recovered consciousness.

He was half raised,
pointing
with shaking hand at the opposite ledge.

His distended eyes were riveted upon Rojas.

He was trying
to utter speech that would not come.

Gale wheeled,
rigid now,
steeling himself
to one last forlorn hope --that Mercedes could defend herself.

She had a gun.

He doubted not at all that she would use it.

But,
remembering her terror of this savage,
he feared
for her.

Rojas reached the level of the ledge.

He halted.

He crouched.

It was the act of a panther.

Manifestly he saw Mercedes within the cave.

Then faint shots patted the air,
broke in quick echo.

Rojas went down as if struck a heavy blow.

He was hit.

But even as Gale yelled in sheer madness the bandit leaped erect.

He seemed too quick,
too supple
to be badly wounded.

A slight,
dark figure flashed out of the cave.

Mercedes! She backed against the wall.

Gale saw a puff of white--heard a report.

But the bandit lunged at her.

Mercedes ran,
not
to try
to pass him,
but straight
for the precipice.

Her intention was plain.

But Rojas oustripped her,
even as she reached the verge.

Then a piercing scream pealed across the crater--a scream of despair.

Gale closed his eyes.

He could not bear
to see more.

Thorne echoed Mercedes's scream.

Gale looked round just in time
to leap and catch the cavalryman as he staggered,
apparently
for the steep slope.

And then,
as Gale dragged him back,
both fell.

Gale saved his friend,
but he plunged into a choya.

He drew his hands away full of the great glistening cones of thorns.

"For God's sake,
Gale,
shoot! Shoot! Kill her! Kill her!...Can't --you--see-Rojas--"
Thorne fainted.

Gale,
stunned
for the instant,
stood
with uplifted hands,
and gazed from Thorne across the crater.

Rojas had not killed Mercedes.

He was overpowering her.

His actions seemed slow,
wearing,
purposeful.

Hers were violent.

Like a trapped she-wolf,
Mercedes was fighting.

She tore,
struggled,
flung herself.

Rojas's intention was terribly plain.

In agony now,
both mental and physical,
cold and sick and weak,
Gale gripped his rifle and aimed at the struggling forms on the ledge.

He pulled the trigger.

The bullet struck up a cloud of red dust close
to the struggling couple.

Again Gale fired,
hoping
to hit Rojas,
praying
to kill Mercedes.

The bullet struck high.

A third--fourth--fifth time the Remington spoke--in vain! The rifle fell from Gale's racked hands.

How horribly plain that fiend's intention! Gale tried
to close his eyes,
but could not.

He prayed wildly
for a sudden blindness --to faint as Thorne had fainted.

But he was transfixed
to the spot
with eyes that pierced the red light.

Mercedes was growing weaker,
seemed about
to collapse.

"Oh,
Jim Lash,
are you dead?"
cried Gale.

"Oh,
Laddy!...Oh,
Yaqui! Suddenly a dark form literally fell down the wall behind the ledge where Rojas fought the girl.

It sank in a heap,
then bounded erect.

"Yaqui!"
screamed Gale,
and he waved his bleeding hands till the blood bespattered his face.

Then he choked.

Utterance became impossible.

The Indian bent over Rojas and flung him against the wall.

Mercedes,
sinking back,
lay still.

When Rojas got up the Indian stood between him and escape from the ledge.

Rojas backed the other way along the narrowing shelf of lava.

His manner was abject,
stupefied.

Slowly he stepped backward.

It was then that Gale caught the white gleam of a knife in Yaqui's hand.

Rojas turned and ran.

He rounded a corner of wall where the footing was precarious.

Yaqui followed slowly.

His figure was dark and menacing.

But he was not in a hurry.

When he passed off the ledge Rojas was edging farther and farther along the wall.

He was clinging now
to the lava,
creeping inch by inch.

Perhaps he had thought
to work around the buttress or climb over it.

Evidently he went as far as possible,
and there he clung,
an unscalable wall above,
the abyss beneath.

The approach of the Yaqui was like a slow dark shadow of gloom.

If it seemed so
to the stricken Gale what must it have been
to Rojas?

He appeared
to sink against the wall.

The Yaqui stole closer and closer.

He was the savage now,
and
for him the moment must have been glorified.

Gale saw him gaze up at the great circling walls of the crater,
then down into the depths.

Perhaps the red haze hanging above him,
or the purple haze below,
or the deep caverns in the lava,
held
for Yaqui spirits of the desert,
his gods
to whom he called.

Perhaps he invoked shadows of his loved ones and his race,
calling them in this moment of vengeance.

Gale heard--or imagined he heard--that wild,
strange Yaqui cry.

Then the Indian stepped close
to Rojas,
and bent low,
keeping out of reach.

How slow were his motions! Would Yaqui never--never end it?...A wail drifted across the crater
to Gale's ears.

Rojas fell backward and plunged sheer.

The bank of white choyas caught him,
held him upon their steel spikes.

How long did the dazed Gale sit there watching Rojas wrestling and writhing in convulsive frenzy?

The bandit now seemed mad
to win the delayed death.

When he broke free he was a white patched object no longer human,
a ball of choya burrs,
and he slipped off the bank
to shoot down and down into the purple depths of the crater.

XIII Changes At Forlorn River The first of March saw the federal occupation of the garrison at Casita.

After a short,
decisive engagement the rebels were dispersed into small bands and driven eastward along the boundary line toward Nogales.

It was the destiny of Forlorn River,
however,
never
to return
to the slow,
sleepy tenor of its former existence.

Belding's predictions came true.

That straggling line of home-seekers was but a forerunner of the real invasion of Altar Valley.

Refugees from Mexico and from Casita spread the word that water and wood and grass and land were
to be had at Forlorn River;
and as if by magic the white tents and red adobe houses sprang up
to glisten in the sun.

Belding was happier than he had been
for a long time.

He believed that evil days
for Forlorn River,
along
with the apathy and lack of enterprise,
were in the past.

He hired a couple of trustworthy Mexicans
to ride the boundary line,
and he settled down
to think of ranching and irrigation and mining projects.

Every morning he expected
to receive some word form Sonoyta or Yuma,
telling him that Yaqui had guided his party safely across the desert.

Belding was simple-minded,
a man more inclined
to action than reflection.

When the complexities of life hemmed him in,
he groped his way out,
never quite understanding.

His wife had always been a mystery
to him.

Nell was sunshine most of the time,
but,
like the sun-dominated desert,
she was subject
to strange changes,
wilful,
stormy,
sudden.

It was enough
for Belding now
to find his wife in a lighter,
happier mood,
and
to see Nell dreamily turning a ring round and round the third finger of her left hand and watching the west.

Every day both mother and daughter appeared farther removed from the past darkly threatening days.

Belding was hearty in his affections,
but undemonstrative.

If there was any sentiment in his make-up it had an outlet in his memory of Blanco Diablo and a longing
to see him.

Often Belding stopped his work
to gaze out over the desert toward the west.

When he thought of his rangers and Thorne and Mercedes he certainly never forgot his horse.

He wondered if Diablo was running,
walking,
resting;
if Yaqui was finding water and grass.

In March,
with the short desert winter over,
the days began
to grow warm.

The noon hours were hot,
and seemed
to give promise of the white summer blaze and blasting furnace wind soon
to come.

No word was received from the rangers.

But this caused Belding no concern,
and it seemed
to him that his women folk considered no news good news.

Among the many changes coming
to pass in Forlorn River were the installing of post-office service and the building of a mescal drinking-house.

Belding had worked hard
for the post office,
but he did not like the idea of a saloon
for Forlorn River.

Still,
that was an inevitable evil.

The Mexicans would have mescal.

Belding had kept the little border hamlet free of an establishment
for distillation of the fiery cactus drink.

A good many Americans drifted into Forlorn River--miners,
cowboys,
prospectors,
outlaws,
and others of nondescript character;
and these men,
of course,
made the saloon,
which was also an inn,
their headquarters.

Belding,
with Carter and other old residents,
saw the need of a sheriff
for Forlorn River.

One morning early in this spring month,
while Belding was on his way from the house
to the corrals,
he saw Nell running Blanco Jose'
down the road at a gait that amazed him.

She did not take the turn of the road
to come in by the gate.

She put Jose'
at a four-foot wire fence,
and came clattering into the yard.

"Nell must have another tantrum,"
said Belding.

"She's long past due."

Blanco Jose,
like the other white horses,
was big of frame and heavy,
and thunder rolled from under his great hoofs.

Nell pulled him up,
and as he pounded and slid
to a halt in a cloud of dust she swung lightly down.

It did not take more than half an eye
for Belding
to see that she was furious.

"Nell,
what's come off now?"
asked Belding.

"I'm not going
to tell you,"
she replied,
and started away,
leading Jose toward the corral.

Belding leisurely followed.

She went into the corral,
removed Jose's bridle,
and led him
to the watering-trough.

Belding came up,
and without saying anything began
to unbuckle Jose's saddle girths.

But he ventured a look at Nell.

The red had gone from her face,
and he was surprised
to see her eyes brimming
with tears.

Most assuredly this was not one of Nell's tantrums.

While taking off Jose's saddle and hanging it in the shed Belding pondered in his slow way.

When he came back
to the corral Nell had her face against the bars,
and she was crying.

He slipped a big arm around her and waited.

Although it was not often expressed,
there was a strong attachment between them.

"Dad,
I don't want you
to think me a--a baby any more,"
she said.

"I've been insulted."

With a specific fact
to make clear thought in Belding's mind he was never slow.

"I knew something unusual had come off.

I guess you'd better tell me."

"Dad,
I will,
if you promise."

"What?"
"Not
to mention it
to mother,
not
to pack a gun down there,
and never,
never tell Dick."

Belding was silent.

Seldom did he make promises readily.

"Nell,
sure something must have come off,
for you
to ask all that."

"If you don't promise I'll never tell,
that's all,"
she declared,
firmly.

Belding deliberated a little longer.

He knew the girl.

"Well,
I promise not
to tell mother,"
he said,
presently;
"and seeing you're here safe and well,
I guess I won't go packing a gun down there,
wherever that is.

But I won't promise
to keep anything from Dick that perhaps he ought
to know."

"Dad,
what would Dick do if--if he were here and I were
to tell him I'd--I'd been horribly insulted?"
"I guess that
'd depend.

Mostly,
you know,
Dick does what you want.

But you couldn't stop him--nobody could--if there was reason,
a man's reason,
to get started.

Remember what he did
to Rojas!...Nell,
tell me what's happened."

Nell,
regaining her composure,
wiped her eyes and smoothed back her hair.

"The other day,
Wednesday,"
she began,
"I was coming home,
and in front of that mescal drinking-place there was a crowd.

It was a noisy crowd.

I didn't want
to walk out into the street or seem afraid.

But I had
to do both.

There were several young men,
and if they weren't drunk they certainly were rude.

I never saw them before,
but I think they must belong
to the mining company that was run out of Sonora by rebels.

Mrs.Carter was telling me.

Anyway,
these young fellows were Americans.

They stretched themselves across the walk and smiled at me.

I had
to go out in the road.

One of them,
the rudest,
followed me.

He was a big fellow,
red-faced,
with prominent eyes and a bold look.

He came up beside me and spoke
to me.

I ran home.

And as I ran I heard his companions jeering.

"Well,
to-day,
just now,
when I was riding up the valley road I came upon the same fellows.

They had instruments and were surveying.

Remembering Dick,
and how he always wished
for an instrument
to help work out his plan
for irrigation,
I was certainly surprised
to see these strangers surveying--and surveying upon Laddy's plot of land.

It was a sandy road there,
and Jose happened
to be walking.

So I reined in and asked these engineers what they were doing.

The leader,
who was that same bold fellow who had followed me,
seemed much pleased at being addressed.

He was swaggering--too friendly;
not my idea of a gentleman at all.

He said he was glad
to tell me he was going
to run water all over Altar Valley.

Dad,
you can bet that made me wild.

That was Dick's plan,
his discovery,
and here were surveyors on Laddy's claim.

"Then I told him that he was working on private land and he'd better get off.

He seemed
to forget his flirty proclivities in amazement.

Then he looked cunning.

I read his mind.

It was news
to him that all the land along the valley had been taken up.

"He said something about not seeing any squatters on the land,
and then he shut up tight on that score.

But he began
to be flirty again.

He got hold of Jose's bridle,
and before I could catch my breath he said I was a peach,
and that he wanted
to make a date
with me,
that his name was Chase,
that he owned a gold mine in Mexico.

He said a lot more I didn't gather,
but when he called me Dearie'
I--well,
I lost my temper.

"I jerked on the bridle and told him
to let go.

He held on and rolled his eyes at me.

I dare say he imagined he was a gentlemen
to be infatuated with.

He seemed sure of conquest.

One thing certain,
he didn't know the least bit about horses.

It scared me the way he got in front of Jose.

I thanked my stars I wasn't up on Blanco Diablo.

Well,
Dad,
I'm a little ashamed now,
but I was mad.

I slashed him across the face
with my quirt.

Jose jumped and knocked Mr. Chase into the sand.

I didn't get the horse under control till I was out of sight of those surveyors,
and then I let him run home."

"Nell,
I guess you punished the fellow enough.

Maybe he's only a conceited softy.

But I don't like that sort of thing.

It isn't Western.

I guess he won't be so smart next time.

Any fellow would remember being hit by Blanco Jose.

If you'd been up on Diablo we'd have
to bury Mr. Chase."

"Thank goodness I wasn't! I'm sorry now,
Dad.

Perhaps the fellow was hurt.

but what could I do?

Let's forget all about it,
and I'll be careful where I ride in the future....Dad,
what does it mean,
this surveying around Forlorn River?"
"I don't know,
Nell,"
replied Belding,
thoughtfully.

"It worries me.

It looks good
for Forlorn River,
but bad
for Dick's plan
to irrigate the valley.

Lord,
I'd hate
to have some one forestall Dick on that!"
"No,
no,
we won't let anybody have Dick's rights,"
declared Nell.

"Where have I been keeping myself not
to know about these surveyors?"
muttered Belding.

"They must have just come."

"Go see Mrs. Cater.

She told me there were strangers in town,
Americans,
who had mining interests in Sonora,
and were run out by Orozco.

Find out what they're doing,
Dad."

Belding discovered that he was,
indeed,
the last man of consequence in Forlorn River
to learn of the arrival of Ben Chase and son,
mineowners and operators in Sonora.

They,
with a force of miners,
had been besieged by rebels and finally driven off their property.

This property was not destroyed,
but held
for ransom.

And the Chases,
pending developments,
had packed outfits and struck
for the border.

Casita had been their objective point,
but,
for some reason which Belding did not learn,
they had arrived instead at Forlorn River.

It had taken Ben Chase just one day
to see the possibilities of Altar Valley,
and in three days he had men at work.

Belding returned home without going
to see the Chases and their operations.

He wanted
to think over the situation.

Next morning he went out
to the valley
to see
for himself.

Mexicans were hastily erecting adobe houses upon Ladd's one hundred and sixty acres,
upon Dick Gale's,
upon Jim Lash's and Thorne's.

There were men staking the valley floor and the river bed.

That was sufficient
for Belding.

He turned back toward town and headed
for the camp of these intruders.

In fact,
the surroundings of Forlorn River,
except on the river side,
reminded Belding of the mushroom growth of a newly discovered mining camp.

Tents were everywhere;
adobe shacks were in all stages of construction;
rough clapboard houses were going up.

the latest of this work was new and surprising
to Belding,
all because he was a busy man,
with no chance
to hear village gossip.

When he was directed
to the headquarters of the Chase Mining Company he went thither in slow-growing wrath.

He came
to a big tent
with a huge canvas fly stretched in front,
under which sat several men in their shirt sleeves.

They were talking and smoking.

"My name's Belding.

I want
to see this Mr. Chase,"
said Belding,
gruffly.

Slow-witted as Belding was,
and absorbed in his own feelings,
he yet saw plainly that his advent was disturbing
to these men.

They looked alarmed,
exchanged glances,
and then quickly turned
to him.

One of them,
a tall,
rugged man
with sharp face and shrewd eyes and white hair,
got up and offered his hand.

"I'm Chase,
senior,"
he said.

"My son Radford Chase is here somewhere.

You're Belding,
the line inspector,
I take it?

I meant
to call on you.

He seemed a rough-and-ready,
loud-spoken man,
withal cordial enough.

"Yes,
I'm the inspector,"
replied Belding,
ignoring the proffered hand,
"and I'd like
to know what in the hell you mean by taking up land claims--staked ground that belongs
to my rangers?"
"Land claims?"
slowly echoed Chase,
studying his man.

"We're taking up only unclaimed land."

"That's a lie.

You couldn't miss the stakes."

"Well,
Mr.Belding,
as
to that,
I think my men did run across some staked ground.

But we recognize only squatters.

If your rangers think they've got property just because they drove a few stakes in the ground they're much mistaken.

A squatter has
to build a house and live on his land so long,
according
to law,
before he owns it.

This argument was unanswerable,
and Belding knew it.

"According
to law!"
exclaimed Belding.

"Then you own up;
you've jumped our claims."

"Mr. Belding,
I'm a plain business man.

I come along.

I see a good opening.

Nobody seems
to have tenable grants.

I stake out claims,
locate squatters,
start
to build.

It seems
to me your rangers have overlooked certain precautions.

That's unfortunate
for them.

I'm prepared
to hold my claim and
to back all the squatters who work
for me.

If you don't like it you can carry the matter
to Tucson.

The law will uphold me."

"The law?

Say,
on this southwest border we haven't any law except a man's word and a gun."

"Then you'll find United States law has come along
with Ben Chase,"
replied the other,
snapping his fingers.

He was still smooth,
outspoken,
but his mask had fallen.

"You're not a Westerner?"
queried Belding.

"No,
I'm from Illinois."

I thought the West hadn't bred you.

I know your kind.

You'd last a long time on the Texas border;
now,
wouldn't you?

You're one of the land and water hogs that has come
to root in the West.

You're like the timber sharks--take it all and leave none
for those who follow.

Mr. Chase,
the West would fare better and last longer if men like you were driven out."

"You can't drive me out."

"I'm not so sure of that.

Wait till my rangers come back.

I wouldn't be in your boots.

Don't mistake me.

I don't suppose you could be accused of stealing another man's ideas or plan,
but sure you've stolen these four claims.

Maybe the law might uphold you.

But the spirit,
not the letter,
counts
with us bordermen."

"See here,
Belding,
I think you're taking the wrong view of the matter.

I'm going
to develop this valley.

You'd do better
to get in
with me.

I've a proposition
to make you about that strip of land of yours facing the river."

"You can't make any deals
with me.

I won't have anything
to do
with you."

Belding abruptly left the camp and went home.

Nell met him,
probably intended
to question him,
but one look into his face confirmed her fears.

She silently turned away.

Belding realized he was powerless
to stop Chase,
and he was sick
with disappointment
for the ruin of Dick's hopes and his own.

XIV A Lost Son Time passed.

The population of Forlorn River grew apace.

Belding,
who had once bee the head of the community,
found himself a person of little consequence.

Even had he desired it he would not have had any voice in the selection of postmaster,
sheriff,
and a few other officials.

The Chases divided their labors between Forlorn River and their Mexican gold mine,
which had been restored
to them.

The desert trips between these two places were taken in automobiles.

A month's time made the motor cars almost as familiar a sight in Forlorn River as they had been in Casita before the revolution.

Belding was not so busy as he had been formerly.

As he lost ambition he began
to find less work
to do.

His wrath at the usurping Chases increased as he slowly realized his powerlessness
to cope
with such men.

They were promoters,
men of big interests and wide influence in the Southwest.

The more they did
for Forlorn River the less reason there seemed
to be
for his own grievance.

He had
to admit that it was personal;
that he and Gale and the rangers would never have been able
to develop the resources of the valley as these men were doing it.

All day long he heard the heavy booming blasts and the rumble of avalanches up in the gorge.

Chase's men were dynamiting the cliffs in the narrow box canyon.

They were making the dam just as Gale had planned
to make it.

When this work of blasting was over Belding experienced a relief.

He would not now be continually reminded of his and Gale's loss.

Resignation finally came
to him.

But he could not reconcile himself
to misfortune
for Gale.

Moreover,
Belding had other worry and strain.

April arrived
with no news of the rangers.

From Casita came vague reports of raiders in the Sonoyta country--reports impossible
to verify until his Mexican rangers returned.

When these men rode in,
one of them,
Gonzales,
an intelligent and reliable halfbreed,
said he had met prospectors at the oasis.

They had just come in on the Camino del Diablo,
reported a terrible trip of heat and drought,
and not a trace of the Yaqui's party.

"That settles it,"
declared Belding.

"Yaqui never went
to Sonoyta.

He's circled round
to the Devil's Road,
and the rangers,
Mercedes,
Thorne,
the horses--they--I'm afraid they have been lost in the desert.

It's an old story on Camino del Diablo.

He had
to tell Nell that,
and it was an ordeal which left him weak.

Mrs.Belding listened
to him,
and was silent
for a long time while she held the stricken Nell
to her breast.

Then she opposed his convictions
with that quiet strength so characteristic of her arguments.

"Well,
then,"
decided Belding,
"Rojas headed the rangers at Papago Well or the Tanks."

"Tom,
when you are down in the mouth you use poor judgment,"
she went on.

"You know only by a miracle could Rojas or anybody have headed those white horses.

Where's your old stubborn confidence?

Yaqui was up on Diablo.

Dick was up on Sol.

And there were the other horses.

They could not have been headed or caught.

Miracles don't happen."

"All right,
mother,
it's sure good
to hear you,"
said Belding.

She always cheered him,
and now he grasped at straws.

"I'm not myself these days,
don't mistake that.

Tell us what you think.

You always say you feel things when you really don't know them."

"I can say little more than what you said yourself the night Mercedes was taken away.

You told Laddy
to trust Yaqui,
that he was a godsend.

He might go south into some wild Sonora valley.

He might lead Rojas into a trap.

He would find water and grass where no Mexican or American could."

"But mother,
they're gone seven weeks.

Seven weeks! At the most I gave them six weeks.

Seven weeks in the desert!"
"How do the Yaquis live?"
she asked.

Belding could not reply
to that,
but hope revived in him.

He had faith in his wife,
though he could not in the least understand what he imagined was something mystic in her.

"Years ago when I was searching
for my father I learned many things about this country,"
said Mrs. Belding.

"You can never tell how long a man may live in the desert.

The fiercest,
most terrible and inaccessible places often have their hidden oasis.

In his later years my father became a prospector.

That was strange
to me,
for he never cared
for gold or money.

I learned that he was often gone in the desert
for weeks,
once
for months.

Then the time came when he never came back.

That was years before I reached the southwest border and heard of him.

Even then I did not
for long give up hope of his coming back,
I know now--something tells me--indeed,
it seems his spirit tells me--he was lost.

But I don't have that feeling
for Yaqui and his party.

Yaqui has given Rojas the slip or has ambushed him in some trap.

Probably that took time and a long journey into Sonora.

The Indian is too wise
to start back now over dry trails.

He'll curb the rangers;
he'll wait.

I seem
to know this,
dear Nell,
so be brave,
patient.

Dick Gale will come back
to you."

"Oh,
mother!"
cried Nell.

"I can't give up hope while I have you."

That talk
with the strong mother worked a change in Nell and Belding.

Nell,
who had done little but brood and watch the west and take violent rides,
seemed
to settle into a waiting patience that was sad,
yet serene.

She helped her mother more than ever;
she was a comfort
to Belding;
she began
to take active interest in the affairs of the growing village.

Belding,
who had been breaking under the strain of worry,
recovered himself so that
to outward appearance he was his old self.

He alone knew,
however,
that his humor was forced,
and that the slow burning wrath he felt
for the Chases was flaming into hate.

Belding argued
with himself that if Ben Chase and his son,
Radford,
had turned out
to be big men in other ways than in the power
to carry on great enterprises he might have become reconciled
to them.

But the father was greedy,
grasping,
hard,
cold;
the so