im Whip of a Girl

XXII. A Tune for Uncle Bud

XXIII. Like One Who Sleeps

XXIV. The Genial Bud

XXV. The Little Fires

XXVI. Idle Noon

XXVII. Waco

XXVIII. A Squared Account

XXIX. Bud's Conscience

XXX. In the Hills

XXXI. In the Pines

XXXII. Politics

XXXIII. The Fires of Home

XXXIV. Young Life

XXXV. The High Trail

Illustrations

Waring of Sonora-Town

A huddled shape near a boulder

"I came over--to tell you--that it was Pat's gun"

They made coffee and ate the sandwiches she had prepared

_From drawings by E. Boyd Smith_

TANG OF LIFE

Chapter I

_The Canon_

Waring picketed his horse in a dim angle of the Agua Fria Canon, spread
his saddle-blanket to dry in the afternoon sun, and, climbing to a
narrow ledge, surveyed the canon from end to end with a pair of
high-power glasses. He knew the men he sought would ride south. He was
reasonably certain that they would not ride through the canon in
daylight. The natural trail through the Agua Fria was along the western
wall; a trail that he had avoided, working his toilsome way down the
eastern side through a labyrinth of brush and rock that had concealed
him from view. A few hundred yards below his hasty camp a sandy arroyo
crossed the canon's mouth.

He had planned to intercept the men where the trail crossed this arroyo,
or, should the trail show pony tracks, to follow them into the desert
beyond, where, sooner or later, he would overtake them. They had a start
of twelve hours, but Waring reasoned that they would not do much riding
in daylight. The trail at the northern end of the canon had shown no
fresh tracks that morning. His problem was simple. The answer would be
definite. He returned to the shelter of the brush, dropped the glasses
into a saddle-pocket, and stretched himself wearily.

A few yards below him, on a brush-dotted level, his horse, Dexter,
slowly circled his picket and nibbled at the scant bunch-grass. The
western sun trailed long shadows across the canon; shadows that drifted
imperceptibly farther and farther, spreading, commingling, softening the
broken outlines of ledge and brush until the walled solitude was brimmed
with dusk, save where a red shaft cleft the fast-fading twilight,
burning like a great spotlight on a picketed horse and a man asleep, his
head pillowed on a saddle.

As the dusk drew down, the horse ceased grazing, sniffed the coming
night, and nic