y had been on the trail twenty days when at dusk one day they moved
slowly down a wide, gradual slope toward a desert. At the foot of the
slope was a water hole filled with a dark, brackish fluid, with a green
scum fringing its edges. The slope merged gently into the floor of the
desert, like an ocean beach stretching out into the water, and for a
distance out into the floor of the desert there was bunch grass,
mesquite, and greasewood, where the cattle might find grazing for the
night. Beyond the stretch of grass spread the dead, gray dust, of the
desert, desolate in the filmy, mystic haze that was slowly descending.

The cattle came down eagerly, for they had grazed little during the day
in the mountainous region through which they had passed. They were
showing the effects of the drive. They had been sleek and fat when they
started from the Circle L; they were growing lean, wild, and they were
always ravenously hungry.

But where they could feed they required little attention; and the
cowboys, after halting them, helped Garvin establish the lines of a rope
corral into which they drove the _remuda_. Then they built a fire and
squatted wearily around it--at a respectful distance--to watch the
cook--and to listen to him as he complainingly prepared supper.

The men had finished, and the long shadows of the dusk were stealing out
over the desert, when Lawler--sitting on the chuck-box--heard Blackburn
exclaim sharply:

"_Hell's fire! Here they come!_"

Blackburn had sprung to his feet, his eyes blazing with the pent-up
wrath that had been in them for many days. He was tense, his muscles
straining; and his fingers were moving restlessly near the butt of the
huge pistol that swung at his hip. The fingers were closing and
unclosing, betraying the man's passion.

Lawler got to his feet. Following the direction of Blackburn's flaming
eyes, he saw, perhaps a mile away, a large body of horsemen. They were
descending the long slope over which the herd had been driven.

Lawler counted them--thirty-nine. But the menace was no longer
invisible; it was now a material thing which could be met on such terms
as might be, with the law of chance to govern the outcome.

Lawler did not doubt that the on-coming riders were hostile. He had felt
that when he first had been made aware of their presence behind the
herd. He saw, too, that the men of his outfit felt as he did; for they
were all on their feet, their faces grim, their eyes gl