led together in the sand. From first to last you might have
counted--one--two--three--four! Johnny came clear of the tangle with
Jody's six-shooter in his hand. He grabbed Jody by the collar and
dragged him from under the struggling horses.

"We can't go on with this, Jody!" he said gravely. "You've got no
gun!"

II

"'She is useful to us, undoubtedly,' answered Corneuse, 'but she does
us an injury by ruining us.'"
--_The Elm Tree on the Mall._

The Jornada is a high desert of tableland, east of the Rio Grande.
In design it is strikingly like a billiard table; forty-five miles
by ninety, with mountain ranges for rail at east and west, broken
highlands on the south, a lava bed on the north. At the middle of each
rail and at each corner, for pockets, there is a mountain passway and
water; there are peaks and landmarks for each diamond on the rail;
for the center and for each spot there is a railroad station and
water--Lava, Engle and Upham. Roughly speaking there is road or trail
from each spot to each pocket, each spot to each spot, each pocket to
every other pocket. In the center, where you put the pin at pin pool,
stands Engle.

Noon of the next day found Johnny nearing Moongate Pass, a deep notch
in the San Andreas Mountains; a smooth semicircle exactly filled and
fitted by the rising moon, when full and seen from Engle. Through
Moongate led the wagon road, branching at the high parks on the summit
to five springs: The Bar Cross horse camp, Bear Den, Rosebud, Good
Fortune, Grapevine.

Johnny drove his casualties slowly up the gentle valley. On either
hand a black-cedared ridge climbed eastward, each to a high black
mountain at the head of the pass. Johnny gathered up what saddle
horses were in the pass and moved them along with his cripples.

At the summit he came to a great gateway country of parks and cedar
mottes, gentle slopes and low rolling ridges, with wide smooth
valleys falling away to north and south; eastward rose a barrier of
red-sandstone hills. High in those red hills Johnny saw two horsemen.
They drove a bunch of horses of their own; they rode swiftly down a
winding backbone to intercept him. He held up his little herd; the two
riders slowed up in response. They came through a greenwood archway to
the little cove where Johnny waited. One was a boy of sixteen, Bob
Gifford, left in charge of the horse camp; the other a tall stranger
who held up his h