e ditch as a machine flicked past and
drummed away in the distance.

To Waco, rigid and staring, the air seemed filled with a kind of
hovering terror, a whining threat of danger that came in bursts of
driving sand and dwindled away to harsh whisperings. He stood it as
long as he could. Pat had not spoken.

[Illustration: A huddled shape near a boulder]

Waco touched his arm. "I got a hunch," he said hoarsely,--"I got a hunch
we oughta go back."

Pat nodded. But the ponies swept on down the road, their manes and tails
whipping in the wind. Another mile and they slowed down in heavy sand.
The buckboard tilted forward as they descended the sharp pitch of an
arroyo. Unnoticed, Pat's gun slipped to the floor of the wagon.

In the arroyo the wind seemed to have died away, leaving a startled
quietness. It still hung above them, and an occasional gust filled their
eyes with grit. Waco drew a deep breath. The ponies tugged through the
heavy sand.

Without a sound to warn them a rider appeared close to the front wheel
of the buckboard. Waco shrank down in sodden terror. It was the Starr
foreman, High-Chin Bob. Waco saw Pat's hand flash to his side, then
fumble on the seat.

"I'm payin' the Kid's debt," said High Chin, and, laughing, he threw
shot after shot into the defenseless body of his old enemy.

Waco saw Pat slump forward, catch himself, and finally topple from the
seat. As the reins slipped from his fingers the ponies lunged up the
arroyo. Waco crouched, clutching the foot-rail. A bullet hummed over his
head. Gaining the level, the ponies broke into a wild run. The red wind
whined as it drove across the mesa. The buckboard lurched sickeningly.
A scream of terror wailed down the wind as the buckboard struck a
telegraph pole. A blind shock--and for Waco the droning of the wind had
ceased.

Dragging the broken traces, the ponies circled the mesa and set off at a
gallop toward home. At the side of the road lay the splintered
buckboard, wheels up. And Waco, hovering on the edge of the black abyss,
dreamed strange dreams.

* * * * *

Waring, riding in with the crew, found the ranch-house deserted and the
pinto ponies dragging the shreds of a broken harness, grazing along the
fence. Waring sent a man to catch up the team. Ramon cooked supper. The
men ate in silence.

After supper Waring changed his clothes, saddled Dex, and packed some
food in the saddle-pockets. "I am going out to l