handy when he needs us," Bob added in his turn. "We're sure
tickled we got a chanct to go to Brad Steelman's party. I'm ce'tainly
glad to 'a' met you, Miss Joyce." He ducked his head and scraped back a
foot in what was meant to be a bow.

Emerson Crawford sauntered in, big and bluff and easy-going. "Hittin' the
trail, boys? Good enough. Hope you find the thieves. If you do, play yore
cards close. They're treacherous devils. Don't take no chances with 'em.
I left an order at the store for you to draw on me for another pair of
boots in place of those you lost in the brush, Dave. Get a good pair,
son. They're on me. Well, so long. Luck, boys. I'll look for you-all back
with the D Bar Lazy R when you've finished this job."

The punchers rode away without looking back, but many times in the days
that followed their hearts turned to that roof which had given the word
home a new meaning to them both.

CHAPTER IX

GUNSIGHT PASS

The pursuit took the riders across a wide, undulating plain above which
danced the dry heat of the desert. Lizards sunned themselves on flat
rocks. A rattlesnake slid toward the cover of a prickly pear. The
bleached bones of a cow shone white beside the trail.

The throats of the cowpunchers filled with alkali dust and their eyes
grew red and sore from it. Magnificent mirages unfolded themselves: lakes
cool and limpid, stretching to the horizon, with inviting forests in the
distance; an oasis of lush green fields that covered miles; mesquite
distorted to the size of giant trees and cattle transformed into
dinosaurs. The great gray desert took on freakish shapes of erosion.
Always, hour after hour beneath a copper sky, they rode in palpitating
heat through sand drifts, among the salt bushes and the creosote, into
cowbacked hills beyond which the stark mountains rose.

Out of the fiery furnace of the plain they came in late afternoon to
the uplands, plunging into a land of deep gorges and great chasms. Here
manzanita grew and liveoaks flourished. They sent a whitetail buck
crashing through the brush into a canon.

When night fell they built a fire of niggerheads and after they had eaten
found its glow grateful. For they were well up in the hills now and the
night air was sharp.

In the sandy desert they had followed easily the trail of the thieves,
but as they had got into the hills the tracks had become fainter and
fewer. The young men discussed this while they lay in their blankets in