nor to throw sharp glances north and south. He drew off a
glove and pushed his hat back, using a pocket handkerchief to brush the
dust from his face and running the fingers of the hand through his
hair--thereby producing another ballooning dust cloud which splayed
heavily downward.

"What's botherin' me is that shootin'," he went on, still speaking to the
black horse. "We sure enough heard it--didn't we?" He laughed, again
patting the black's shoulder. "An' you heard it first--as usual--with me
trailin' along about half a second behind. But we sure heard 'em, eh?"

The black horse whinnied lowly, whereupon the rider dismounted, and
stretched himself.

From a water-bag at the cantle of the saddle he poured water into his big
hat, watching sympathetically while the big horse drank. Some few drops
that still remained in the hat after the horse had finished he playfully
shook on the animal's head, smiling widely at the whinny of delight that
greeted the action. He merely wet his own lips from the water-bag. Then
for an instant, after replacing the bag, he stood at the black's
shoulder, his face serious.

"We'll hit the Kelso water-hole about sundown, I reckon, Purgatory," he
said. "That's certain. There's only one thing can stop us--that shootin'.
If it's Apaches, why, I reckon there's a long dry spell ahead of us; but
if it's only Greasers----"

He grinned with grim eloquence, patted the black again, and climbed into
the saddle. Again, as before, he sat silent upon his mount, scanning the
sun-scorched waste; and then he rode forward.

An hour later, during which he loped the black horse slowly, he again
drew the animal to a halt and gazed around him, frowning, his eyes
gleaming with a savage intolerance.

The shooting he had heard some time previous to his appearance at the
base of the big sand dune had not been done by Indians. He was almost
convinced of that now. Or, if Indians had done the shooting, they had not
yet observed him. The fact that he had seen no smoke signals proved that.

Still, there was the deep silence on every hand to bring doubt into his
mind; and he knew that Indians--especially Apaches--were tricky,
sometimes foregoing the smoke signals to lie in ambush. And very
likely--if they had seen him coming--they were doing that very thing:
waiting for him to ride into the trap they had prepared. He had not been
able to locate the point from which the reports had come. It had seemed
to him that the