ale sand
under a cactus, there lay a blanketed form, prone, outstretched, a
carbine clutched in one hand, a cigarette, still burning, in the other.

The cavalcade of white horses passed within five hundred yards of
campfires, around which dark forms moved in plain sight. Soft pads in
sand, faint metallic tickings of steel on thorns, low, regular
breathing of horses--these were all the sounds the fugitives made, and
they could not have been heard at one-fifth the distance. The lights
disappeared from time to time, grew dimmer, more flickering, and at
last they vanished altogether. Belding's fleet and tireless steeds
were out in front; the desert opened ahead wide, dark, vast. Rojas and
his rebels were behind, eating, drinking, careless. The somber shadow
lifted from Gale's heart. He held now an unquenchable faith in the
Yaqui. Belding would be listening back there along the river. He would
know of the escape. He would tell Nell, and then hide her safely. As
Gale accepted a strange and fatalistic foreshadowing of toil, blood,
and agony in this desert journey, so he believed in Mercedes's ultimate
freedom and happiness, and his own return to the girl who had grown
dearer than life.

A cold, gray dawn was fleeing before a rosy sun when Yaqui halted the
march at Papago Well. The horses were taken to water, then led down
the arroyo into the grass. Here packs were slipped, saddles removed.
Mercedes was cold, lame, tired, but happy. It warmed Gale's blood to
look at her. The shadow of fear still lay in her eyes, but it was
passing. Hope and courage shone there, and affection for her ranger
protectors and the Yaqui, and unutterable love for the cavalryman. Jim
Lash remarked how cleverly they had fooled the rebels.

"Shore they'll be comin' along," replied Ladd.

They built a fire, cooked and ate. The Yaqui spoke only one word:
"Sleep." Blankets were spread. Mercedes dropped into a deep slumber,
her head on Thorne's shoulder. Excitement kept Throne awake. The two
rangers dozed beside the fire. Gale shared the Yaqui's watch. The sun
began to climb and the icy edge of dawn to wear away. Rabbits bobbed
their cotton tails under the mesquite. Gale climbed a rocky wall above
the arroyo bank, and there, with command over the miles of the
back-trail, he watched.

It was a sweeping, rolling, wrinkled, and streaked range of desert that
he saw, ruddy in the morning sunlight, with patches of cactus and
mesquite