e had seen not a single soul. Now
he saw someone, a man at a distance and upon the side of the canon
opposite the spot he and Betty had chosen. Kendric had been for ten
minutes lying under a tree on the ridge, his body concealed by an
outcropping ledge of rock over which he had been looking. The man,
like himself, was playing a waiting game. But just now he had stirred,
moving swiftly from behind a tree to a nearby boulder. Thus he had
caught Kendric's eye. And thus Kendric was reassured, confident after
the first quick sinking of his heart, that the other had not seen him.

The man, too far away for Kendric to distinguish detail of either
costume or features, was hardly more than a slinking shadow. But
almost with the first glimpse there came the quick suspicion that it
was Ruiz Rios. He saw something white in the man's hand; a
handkerchief since the gesture was one of wiping a wet forehead. And
on that slender evidence Kendric's belief established itself.
Zoraida's vacqueros would not carry white handkerchiefs; if they
carried any sort at all they would probably be red or yellow or blue;
or, if white originally, they would not be kept so snowy as to flash
like that one. And the gesture itself, once the thought had come to
him, was vaguely suggestive of that slow grace in every movement that
was Rios's. The man might be anyone, conceivably even Barlow or Brace;
but in his heart Kendric knew it was Rios.

Lower than ever Kendric crouched in the shelter of the rock; steady and
unwinking and watchful did his eyes cling to the distant figure. He
made out after a long period of motionlessness another gesture; the
man's hands were up to his face; he was shading his eyes or studying
the mountainside with field glasses.

The latter probably.

The afternoon dragged on and for a long time neither man moved. At
last Rios, if Rios it was, withdrew a little, slipped behind a tree,
passed to another and disappeared. Kendric did not see him again
though he kept alert every instant. At last came the time when the sun
slipped down behind the ridge and the dusk thickened and the stars came
out. Kendric rose, stiff and weary, and began his slow, tedious way
down into the canon. His long enforced stillness during which he had
not dared doze a second, had served to bring a full realization of
bodily fatigue and need of sleep. No rest last night; today many hard
miles and little nourishment; now every nerve yearned for