ll him like you say. I'm dependin' a whole lot on you--to git
me out of this," he added.

"You will rest," she told him, and turned to go back to her work. "I
am your friend," she whispered, pausing with her finger to her lips.

Pete understood and nodded.

So far he had done pretty well, he argued. Later, when he felt able to
ride, he would ask Boca to find a horse for him. He knew that there
must be saddle-stock somewhere in the canon. Men like Flores always
kept several good horses handy for an emergency. Meanwhile Pete
determined to rest and gain strength, even while he pretended that he
was unfit to ride. When he _did_ leave, he would leave in a hurry and
before old Flores could play him another trick.

For a while Pete watched the three figures puttering about the
bean-patch. Presently he got up and stepped into the house, drank some
coffee, and came out again. He sat down on the bench and took mental
stock of his own belongings. He had a few dollars in silver, his
erratic watch, and his gun. Suddenly he bethought him of his saddle.
The sun made his head swim as he stepped out toward the corral. Yes,
his saddle and bridle hung on the corral bars, just where he had left
them. He was about to return to the shade of the portal when he
noticed the tracks of unshod horses in the dust. So old Flores had
other horses in the canon? Well, in a day or so Pete would show the
Mexican a trick with a large round hole in it--the hole representing
the space recently occupied by one of his ponies. Incidentally Pete
realized that he was getting deeper and deeper into the meshes of The
Spider's web--and the thought spurred him to a keener vigilance. So
far he had killed three men actually in self-defense. But when he met
up with Malvey--and Pete promised himself that pleasure--he would not
wait for Malvey to open the argument. "Got to kill to live," he told
himself. "Well, I got the name--and I might as well have the game.
It's nobody's funeral but mine, anyhow." He felt, mistakenly, that his
friends had all gone back on him--a condition of mind occasioned by his
misfortunes rather than by any logical thought, for at that very moment
Jim Bailey was searching high and low for Pete in order to tell him
that Gary was not dead--but had been taken to the railroad hospital at
Enright, operated on, and now lay, minus the fragments of three or four
ribs, as malevolent as ever, and slowly recovering from a wound that