eg. It made him
bite his tongue to keep from crying out. It made the sweat roll off
him. It made him sick.

Moreover, bad as the choya was for man, it was infinitely worse for
beast. A jagged stab from this poisoned cactus was the only thing
Blanco Sol could not stand. Many times that day, before he carried
Mercedes, he had wildly snorted, and then stood trembling while Gale
picked broken thorns from the muscular legs. But after Mercedes had
been put upon Sol Gale made sure no choya touched him.

The afternoon passed like the morning, in ceaseless winding and
twisting and climbing along this abandoned trail. Gale saw many
waterholes, mostly dry, some containing water, all of them
catch-basins, full only after rainy season. Little ugly bunched
bushes, that Gale scarcely recognized as mesquites, grew near these
holes; also stunted greasewood and prickly pear. There was no grass,
and the choya alone flourished in that hard soil.

Darkness overtook the party as they unpacked beside a pool of water
deep under an overhanging shelf of lava. It had been a hard day. The
horses drank their fill, and then stood patiently with drooping heads.
Hunger and thirst appeased, and a warm fire cheered the weary and
foot-sore fugitives. Yaqui said, "Sleep." And so another night passed.

Upon the following morning, ten miles or more up the slow-ascending
lava slope, Gale's attention was called from his somber search for the
less rough places in the trail.

"Dick, why does Yaqui look back?" asked Mercedes.

Gale was startled.

"Does he?"

"Every little while," replied Mercedes.

Gale was in the rear of all the other horses, so as to take, for
Mercedes's sake, the advantage of the broken trail. Yaqui was leading
Diablo, winding around a break. His head was bent as he stepped slowly
and unevenly upon the lava. Gale turned to look back, the first time
in several days. The mighty hollow of the desert below seemed wide
strip of red--wide strip of green--wide strip of gray--streaking to
purple peaks. It was all too vast, too mighty to grasp any little
details. He thought, of course, of Rojas in certain pursuit; but it
seemed absurded to look for him.

Yaqui led on, and Gale often glanced up from his task to watch the
Indian. Presently he saw him stop, turn, and look back. Ladd did
likewise, and then Jim and Thorne. Gale found the desire irresistible.
Thereafter he often rested Blanco Sol, and looked back the while.