white
in color, arrested Gale's roving sight. They bobbed away for a while,
then stopped. They were antelope, and they had seen his horse. When
he rode on they started once more, keeping to the lowest level. These
wary animals were often desert watchdogs for the ranger, they would
betray the proximity of horse or man. With them trotting forward, he
made better time for some miles across the valley. When he lost them,
caution once more slowed his advance.

The valley sloped up and narrowed, to head into an arroyo where grass
began to show gray between the clumps of mesquite. Shadows formed
ahead in the hollows, along the walls of the arroyo, under the trees,
and they seemed to creep, to rise, to float into a veil cast by the
background of bold mountains, at last to claim the skyline. Night was
not close at hand, but it was there in the east, lifting upward,
drooping downward, encroaching upon the west.

Gale dismounted to lead his horse, to go forward more slowly. He had
ridden sixty miles since morning, and he was tired, and a not entirely
healed wound in his hip made one leg drag a little. A mile up the
arroyo, near its head, lay the Papago Well. The need of water for his
horse entailed a risk that otherwise he could have avoided. The well
was on Mexican soil. Gale distinguished a faint light flickering
through the thin, sharp foliage. Campers were at the well, and,
whoever they were, no doubt they had prevented Ladd from meeting Gale.
Ladd had gone back to the next waterhole, or maybe he was hiding in an
arroyo to the eastward, awaiting developments.

Gale turned his horse, not without urge of iron arm and persuasive
speech, for the desert steed scented water, and plodded back to the
edge of the arroyo, where in a secluded circle of mesquite he halted.
The horse snorted his relief at the removal of the heavy, burdened
saddle and accoutrements, and sagging, bent his knees, lowered himself
with slow heave, and plunged down to roll in the sand. Gale poured the
contents of his larger canteen into his hat and held it to the horse's
nose.

"Drink, Sol," he said.

It was but a drop for a thirsty horse. However, Blanco Sol rubbed a
wet muzzle against Gale's hand in appreciation. Gale loved the horse,
and was loved in return. They had saved each other's lives, and had
spent long days and nights of desert solitude together. Sol had known
other masters, though none so kind as this new one; but it was certa