he and Polly Street
were going to be happy together, in spite of their different upbringing,
and his own not very lucid reasons for not having wanted to marry her.

Just at present he was occupied with the idea of the horses. He felt that
they would not be apt to go back on the trail unless it was to look for
water, and water they might find at the bottom of the ravine though the
underbrush was too dense for him to see it. He could follow their trail
very easily in the sandy path but he walked a quarter of a mile before he
found the place where they had struck out of the trail for the bottom of
the ravine.

Very cautiously he started down, for the going was decidedly bad and he
had no wish to risk a fall. He trailed the prints, marveling at the
sure-footedness of the animal which can follow so hazardous a path.

"I wouldn't dare put a horse down a trail like this," he mused with a
grin, "and yet the rascals will go down by themselves as smooth as silk.
Hullo, I guessed right! There is water down here. There's old Jasper
filling up on it, and the mare, too. Well, I guess we don't walk home this
trip." And just as Polly, some hundreds of feet above him was trying madly
to reach the cave, Scott, quite oblivious of impending danger, started on
his difficult climb, leading the two horses.

"Serve you darn well right, you fellows, if I was to make you haul me," he
said, as Jasper's soft nose rubbed against his shoulder. "I would, too, if
I didn't think you'd slide down and break my neck just when my girl needs
me. Come on, you grafters, shake a leg, will you?"

It was a bad climb. The perspiration rolled off Scott's face and the veins
stood out upon his forehead. Gasping for breath, he dug his toes into the
soft earth and plugged ahead, pulling the reluctant animals after him. He
had nearly gained the top, was within twenty feet, perhaps, of the end of
the climb, when Jasper began to pull back. They were breaking through some
brush, Scott being nearly through when Jasper began pulling. Scott gave
the bridle an irritated jerk and spoke sharply to the horse. As he did so,
he looked up and saw Angel Gonzales and his band coming down the trail.
For a second, Scott lost his wits. He took a quick step forward, giving
the bridle another jerk as he did so. Jasper, naturally aggrieved, pulled
back again, and Scott, standing on a loose bit of rock, slipped, tried to
right himself, slipped again, overbalanced, fell and rolled down--