ns near Coyote Springs, nine cowpuncher deputy-sheriffs
bored their way steadily through sun and wind and thirst, traveling due
northwest, keeping always on the trail of the six horses that traveled
steadily before them Always a day's march behind, always watching
hopefully for some sign of delay--for an encouraging freshness in the
tracks that would show a lessening distance between the two parties,
Luck and his Happy Family rode--from dawn till dusk, from another dawn
to another dusk. Their horses, full of little exuberant outbursts of
horse-foolishness when they had left town, settled clown to a dogged,
plodding half walk, half trot which is variously described upon the
range; Luck, for instance, calling it poco-poco; while the Happy Family
termed it running-walk, trail-trot, fox-trot--whatever came easiest to
their tongues at the time. Call it what they pleased, the horses came to
a point where they took the gait mechanically whenever the country was
decently level. They forgot to shy at strange objects, and they never
danced away from a foot lifted to the stirrup when the sky was flaunting
gorgeous bantiers to herald the coming of the sun. More than once they
were thankful to have the dust washed from their nostrils and to let
that pass for a drink. For water holes were few and far between when
they struck that wide, barren land ridged here and there with hills of
rock.

Twice the trail of the six horses was lost, because herds of cattle had
passed between those who rode in baste before, and those who followed in
haste a day's ride behind. They saw riders in the distance nearly
every day, but only occasionally did any Indians come within speaking
distance. These were mostly headed townward in wagons and rickety old
buggies, with the men riding dignifiedly on the spring seat and the
squaws and papooses sitting flat in the bottom behind. These family
parties became more and more inclined to turn and stare after the Happy
Family, as if they were puzzling over the errand that would take nine
men riding close-grouped across the desert, with four pack-horses to
proclaim the journey a long one.

When the trail swung sharply away from the dim wagon road and into the
northwest where the land lay parched and pitiless under the hot sun, the
Happy Family hitched their gun-belts into place, saw to it that their
canteens were brimming with the water that was so precious, and turned
doggedly that way, following the lead of Apple