the canyon wall; the stones scorched; the flies buzzed. I fell asleep
in the scant shade of the sage bushes and awoke, stifled and moist. The
old plainsman, never weary, leaned with his back against a stone and
watched, with narrow gaze, the canyon below. The steely walls hurt my
eyes; the sky was like hot copper. Though nearly wild with heat and
aching bones and muscles and the long hours of wait--wait--wait, I was
ashamed to complain, for there sat the old man, still and silent. I
routed out a hairy tarantula from under a stone and teased him into a
frenzy with my stick, and tried to get up a fight between him and a
scallop-backed horned-toad that blinked wonderingly at me. Then I
espied a green lizard on a stone. The beautiful reptile was about a
foot in length, bright green, dotted with red, and he had diamonds for
eyes. Nearby a purple flower blossomed, delicate and pale, with a bee
sucking at its golden heart. I observed then that the lizard had his
jewel eyes upon the bee; he slipped to the edge of the stone, flicked
out a long, red tongue, and tore the insect from its honeyed perch.
Here were beauty, life and death; and I had been weary for something to
look at, to think about, to distract me from the wearisome wait!

"Listen!" broke in Jones's sharp voice. His neck was stretched, his
eyes were closed, his ear was turned to the wind.

With thrilling, reawakened eagerness, I strained my hearing. I caught a
faint sound, then lost it.

"Put your ear to the ground," said Jones. I followed his advice, and
detected the rhythmic beat of galloping horses.

"The mustangs are coming, sure as you're born!" exclaimed Jones.

"There I see the cloud of dust!" cried he a minute later.

In the first bend of the canyon below, a splintered ruin of rock now
lay under a rolling cloud of dust. A white flash appeared, a line of
bobbing black objects, and more dust; then with a sharp pounding of
hoofs, into clear vision shot a dense black band of mustangs, and well
in front swung the White King.

"Look! Look! I never saw the beat of that--never in my born days!"
cried Jones. "How they move! yet that white fellow isn't half-stretched
out. Get your picture before they pass. You'll never see the beat of
that."

With long manes and tails flying, the mustangs came on apace and passed
us in a trampling roar, the white stallion in the front. Suddenly a
shrill, whistling blast, unlike any sound I had ever heard, made the
canyon fairl