stern sky were breaking. Through the heavy banks
came a faint glimmering of moonlight. At first but a hair-line, it
widened out, reaching up and across the sky, developing steadily into
the semblance of a frozen flash of heat lightning, until all the eastern
heavens showed a shimmering expanse, broken here and there by black
clouds sullenly holding their own, which flooded the underscudding
desert in beautiful mottled gray-green coloring. Wider and wider the
light spread, up and away on either hand, moving stealthily across the
sky, until the sheen of it broke over the ridge itself, and then swept
beyond to the west, laying bare a broad expanse of mesa dotted with
gray-green specks that told of the presence of hundreds of cattle. And
now the sullen clouds took to weaving, swaying under the pressure of
upper-air currents, the specks below beginning to lift and fall with the
motion of the clouds like bits of wreckage undulate on the sea. The
air-drifts descended, came closer, fanning the cheeks of the men,
rustling through the leaves which crowned the ridge, and breaking the
heavy silence. The air-currents flicked the desert with their freight of
swift-moving shadows, causing strange movement among the bits of
wreckage--the cattle. It was a glorious march, lighting up the western
expanse beneath and revealing a flat country, unbroken by dune or cleft
as far as the eye could penetrate. So the light moved on, crowding
before it sullen shadows which presently disappeared.

Johnson broke the stillness. "We'd better move along down," he said, and
shook Pat's reins.

The horses began the long descent. As compared with the upward climb
they made slow progress. Forced to feel their way, they moved always in
halts and starts, over saplings, around bulging rocks, along narrow
ledges, and at length gained the mesa, where the men drew rein. Johnson,
sweeping his eyes coolly over the field of his campaign, began to give
orders.

"Jim," he snapped, "cut in over there--that arroyo--and crowd 'em around
to the south. Don't go too deep." Then, as Jim caught up his reins,
"Glover, swing off this side--close in. We'll keep close in down to the
line. Hop along!"

Pat remained standing. He turned his eyes after the little gray and her
rider. He saw the pair swing up over a rise of ground at a gallop, dip
from view into a hollow, and appear again on the level beyond. Across
this they rode, speeding to the opposite slopes, then slackening a