tightened. He straightened in the saddle. Carmena did not look
back at him. She was turning into the mouth of a wash that appeared to
head over toward the far side of the hills. Half a mile up the wash the
gravelly bottom changed to loose stones. Carmena smashed the smaller
canteen and tossed it off to one side.

Some distance farther along the footing became all rock. Carmena stopped
on a flat ledge and flung the big canteen she was carrying as far as she
could up the arroyo. She then changed from her boots to the long-legged
moccasins that she had hidden in one of the saddlebags. No less hastily
she cut strips from the Navaho saddleblanket to tie over the pony's
lightly shod hoofs.

The sun had now been down for several minutes, and the clear desert
twilight was beginning to fade. Carmena turned the pony and carefully
led him at an easy angle up a flight of solid step ledges on the side of
the arroyo. Half circling a hill, she descended another arroyo that ran
northwest, back down into the level desert.

By the time the edge of the broken ground had been reached dusk was
deepening into night. Carmena halted and eased Lennon down out of the
saddle. Water, trickled a few drops at a time between his cracked lips,
gradually soothed his swollen tongue and parched throat. His fever was
already subsiding in the coolness of nightfall.

Carmena gave him almost half of the remaining quart of water. A half
pint more she used to rinse her own mouth and moisten the nostrils of
the pony. The few sips left were held in reserve.

Scant as was the water ration, it enabled both the girl and Lennon to
suck at lumps of raw bacon. They lay silently mouthing and chewing the
greasy fat, their rifles ready and their ears alert for the slightest
thud of approaching hoofs. But no sound broke the deathlike stillness of
the desert night.

"Looks like we fooled 'em," whispered Carmena. "They must have found the
canteens--figured we'd gone desperate with thirst and headed on across
for the nearest water hole. Can you mount again?"

Lennon dragged himself to his feet.

"You're wonderful!" he murmured. "If you'd leave me here--I'm only a
drag. You could ride at a gallop----"

She grasped his arm and pushed him around beside the horse.

"Don't be looney. We can go all night without a drop. Count on me to
out-travel the pony till sun-up. Get on. You don't suppose I'm going
back on my pard, do you?"

There was no room for argument. Lennon'