between the melancholy ears of his steed.

"I did my best," he said.

The two others stared again across the valley for a space. The gaunt man
passed the back of his hand across the scarred lip.

"Come up!" said the man who owned the silver bridle, suddenly. The
little man started and jerked his rein, and the horse hoofs of the three
made a multitudinous faint pattering upon the withered grass as they
turned back towards the trail....

They rode cautiously down the long slope before them, and so came
through a waste of prickly, twisted bushes and strange dry shapes of
horny branches that grew amongst the rocks, into the levels below.
And there the trail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only
herbage was this scorched dead straw that lay upon the ground. Still, by
hard scanning, by leaning beside the horses' necks and pausing ever and
again, even these white men could contrive to follow after their prey.

There were trodden places, bent and broken blades of the coarse grass,
and ever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark. And once
the leader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste girl may have
trod. And at that under his breath he cursed her for a fool.

The gaunt man checked his leader's tracking, and the little man on the
white horse rode behind, a man lost in a dream. They rode one after
another, the man with the silver bridle led the way, and they spoke
never a word. After a time it came to the little man on the white horse
that the world was very still. He started out of his dream. Besides the
little noises of their horses and equipment, the whole great valley kept
the brooding quiet of a painted scene.

Before him went his master and his fellow, each intently leaning forward
to the left, each impassively moving with the paces of his horse; their
shadows went before them--still, noiseless, tapering attendants; and
nearer a crouched cool shape was his own. He looked about him. What was
it had gone? Then he remembered the reverberation from the banks of the
gorge and the perpetual accompaniment of shifting, jostling pebbles.
And, moreover--? There was no breeze. That was it! What a vast, still
place it was, a monotonous afternoon slumber. And the sky open and
blank, except for a sombre veil of haze that had gathered in the upper
valley.

He straightened his back, fretted with his bridle, puckered his lips
to whistle, and simply sighed. He turned in his saddle for a time, and
st