ed in a saddle or bridle, and from that the rangers
concluded Rojas's horses had long before taken their back trail. What
speculation, what consternation those saddled horses would cause if
they returned to Forlorn River!

As Ladd improved there was one story he had to hear every day. It was
the one relating to what he had missed--the sight of Rojas pursued and
plunged to his doom. The thing had a morbid fascination for the sick
ranger. He reveled in it. He tortured Mercedes. His gentleness and
consideration, heretofore so marked, were in abeyance to some sinister,
ghastly joy. But to humor him Mercedes racked her soul with the
sensations she had suffered when Rojas hounded her out on the ledge;
when she shot him; when she sprang to throw herself over the precipice;
when she fought him; when with half-blinded eyes she looked up to see
the merciless Yaqui reaching for the bandit. Ladd fed his cruel
longing with Thorne's poignant recollections, with the keen, clear,
never-to-be-forgotten shocks to Gale's eye and ear. Jim Lash, for one
at least, never tired of telling how he had seen and heard the tragedy,
and every time in the telling it gathered some more tragic and gruesome
detail. Jim believed in satiating the ranger. Then in the twilight,
when the campfire burned, Ladd would try to get the Yaqui to tell his
side of the story. But this the Indian would never do. There was only
the expression of his fathomless eyes and the set passion of his
massive face.

Those waiting days grew into weeks. Ladd gained very slowly.
Nevertheless, at last he could walk about, and soon he averred that,
strapped to a horse, he could last out the trip to Forlorn River.

There was rejoicing in camp, and plans were eagerly suggested. The
Yaqui happened to be absent. When he returned the rangers told him
they were now ready to undertake the journey back across lava and
cactus.

Yaqui shook his head. They declared again their intention.

"No!" replied the Indian, and his deep, sonorous voice rolled out upon
the quiet of the arroyo. He spoke briefly then. They had waited too
long. The smaller waterholes back in the trail were dry. The hot
summer was upon them. There could be only death waiting down in the
burning valley. Here was water and grass and wood and shade from the
sun's rays, and sheep to be killed on the peaks. The water would hold
unless the season was that dreaded ano seco of the Mexicans.

"Wait for rain