e further side. From his starting place he
had roughly picked out his way, shaping his trail to conform to those
bits of timber which would aid in his concealment. Once over the ridge
he would press on until several miles lay between him and Betty. Then,
if he saw game of any sort or a straying calf or sheep, he would have
to take the chance that a rifle shot entailed. If his shot brought
Zoraida's men down on him, he would have to fight for it or run for it
as circumstances directed.

He was an hour in cresting the first ridge. Before him lay a wild
country, broken and barren in places where there were wildernesses of
rock and thorny bush; in other places scantily timbered and grown up in
tough grasses. A more unlikely game country he thought that he had
never seen. But the land hereabouts was not utterly devoid of water
and always, as he went on, he sought those canons where from a distance
he judged that he might come to a spring. Even so he was parched with
thirst before he found the first mudhole. And before he drew near
enough to drink he sat many minutes screened by some dusty willows, his
eye keen either for watering game or for Zoraida's hirelings who would
be watching the waterholes.

But, when at last he came on, he found nothing but a jumble of tracks.
Ponies had watered here and had trampled the spring into its present
resemblance to a mudhole. He found a place to drink, and drank
thirstily, finding no fault with the alkali water or the sediment in
it. He washed his hands and face in it, wet his hair and went on.

There came three more spurs of mountain to cross, all unlikely for
game, each one hotter and dryer than the others. Twice he had seen a
coyote; he had seen two or three gaunt, hungry-looking jackrabbits.
They had been too far away to draw a shot, gray glimmers through
patches of sage. He had seen never a hoof of wandering cattle. And he
realized that during the heat of the day there was small hope of his
sighting any browsing animal. He would probably have to wait until the
cool of evening and then, if he made his kill, return to Betty in the
dark. And, though he keenly kept his bearings, he knew that if he
mistook a landmark somewhere and got into a wrong canon, he'd have his
work cut out for him finding her at night. Well, that was only a piece
of the whole pattern and he kept his mind on the immediate present.

He estimated that he was ten miles from camp. Ahead of him stre