uld overhaul him and Bill Holmes.
When that happened they believed that they would be fully equal to the
occasion, and that Ramon and Bill and those who were with him would
learn what it means to turn traitor to the hand that has fed them, and
to fling upon that hand the mud of public suspicion. But just now they
were not talking about these things; they were arguing very earnestly
over a very trivial matter indeed, and they got as much satisfaction out
of the contention as though it really amounted to something.

When Luck had eaten and smoked and had ground his cigarette stub under
his heel in the moist earth beside the spring, and had looked at his
watch and got upon his feet with a sigh to say: "Well, boys, let's go,"
the Happy Family (who by the way must now be understood as including
Lite Avery) sighed also and pulled their reluctant feet toward them and
got up also, with sundry hitchings-into-place as to gun-belts and sundry
resettlings as to hats. They pulled their horses more reluctant even
than their riders--away from the green grass; resaddled, recinched the
packs on the four animals that carried the camp supplies, gave them a
last drink at the little irrigating ditch and mounted and straggled out
again upon the trail of the six whom they seemed never able to overtake.

They did not know that the silent Indian with the dingy overalls and the
bobbed hair had watched every movement they made. Through all that hour
of rest not even a papoose had been visible around the hogans--which,
while there was nothing warlike in their keeping under cover, was not
exactly a friendly attitude. Applehead had kept turning his keen, bright
blue eyes that way while he ate and afterwards smoked an after-dinner
pipe, but when they were actually started again upon the trail he
appeared to lay aside his misgivings.

Not even Applehead suspected that the Indian had led a pony carefully
down into a draw, keeping the buildings always between himself and
the party of white men; nor that he watched them while they spread out
beyond the cultivated patch of irrigated ground until they picked up
the trail of the six horses, when they closed the gaps between them and
followed the trail straight away into the parched mesa that was lined
with deep washes and canons and crossed with stony ridges where the heat
radiated up from the bare rocks as from a Heating stove when the fire is
blazing within. When they rode away together, the Indian ran b