of the riders, or perhaps they would not have felt quite so satisfied with the steady advance of the four who had taken the right-hand fork of the trail. They could not even tell just which four men made up the party. They did not greatly care, so long as the force of the white men was divided. They galloped away upon urgent business of their own, 225
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elated because their ruse had worked out as they had planned and hoped.
Applehead took a restrained pull at the canteen, cocked his eyes back at the butte they had just passed, squinted ahead over the flat waste that shimmered with heat to the very skyline that was notched and gashed crudely with more barren hills, and then, screwing the top absent-mindedly on the canteen-mouth, leaned and peered long at the hoof-prints they were following. Beside him Lite Avery, tall and lean to the point of being skinny, followed his movements with quiet attention and himself took to studying more closely the hoof-prints in the sandy soil.
Applehead looked up, gauged the probable direction the trail was taking, and gave a grunt.
' You kin call me a fool,' he said with a certain challenge in his tone, ' but this yere trail don't look good to me, somehow. These yere tracks, they don't size up the same as they done all the way out here. ? N' another thing, they ain't aimed t' meet up with the bunch that Luck's, trailin'. We're headed straight out away from whar Luck's headed. 'N' any way yuh look at it, we're headed 226
'NOW, DANG IT, RIDE!'
into country whar there ain't no more water'n what the rich man got in hell. What would any nh Ramon's outfit want to come away off in here fur ? They ain't nothin' up in here to call 'em.'
' These,' said Lite suddenly, ' are different horse-tracks. They're smaller, for one thing. The bunch we followed out from the red machine rode bigger horses.'
' And carried honey on one side and fresh meat on the other; and one horse was blind in the right eye,' enlarged Pink banteringly, remembering the story of the Careful Observer in an old school-reader of his childhood days.
' Yes, how do you make that out, Lite ? I never noticed any difference in the tracks.'
' The stride is a little shorter today for one thing.' Lite looked around and grinned at Pink, as though he too remembered the dromedary loaded with honey and meat. ' Ain't it, Applehead ? '
' It shore is,' Applehead testified, his face bent toward the hot ground. ' Ain't ary one uh the three that travels like they bin a travelin'—V that shore means something, now I'm tell in' yuh! ' He straightened and stared worriedly ahead of 227
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them again. ' Uh course, they might a picked up fresh horses,' he admitted. ' I calc'late they needed 'em bad enough, if they ain't been grainin' their own on the trip.'
' We didn't see any signs of their horses being turned loose anywhere along,' Lite pointed out with a calm confidence that he was right.
Still, they followed the footprints even though they were beginning to admit with perfect frankness their uneasiness. They were swinging gradually toward one of those isolated humps of red rock-ridges which you will find scattered at random through certain parts of the southwest. Perhaps they held some faint hope that what lay on the other side of the ridge would be more promising, just as we all find ourselves building air-castles upon what lies just over the horizon which divides present facts from future possibilities. Besides, these flat-faced ledges frequently formed a sharp dividing line between barren land and fertile, and the, hoof prints led that way; so it was with a tacit understanding that they would see what lay beyond the ridge that they rode forward.
Suddenly Applehead, eyeing the rocks specu-228
'NOW, DANG IT, RIDE!'
latively, turned his head suddenly to look behind and to either side like one who seeks a way of escape from sudden peril.
' Don't make no quick moves, boys,' he said, waving one gloved hand nonchalantly toward the flat land from which they were turning, ' but foiler my lead 'n' angle down into that draw off here. Mebbe it's deep enough to put us outa sight, V mebbe it ain't. But we'll try it.'
' What's up ? What did yuh see ? ' Pink and Weary spoke in a duet, urging their horses a little closer.
'You fellers keep back thar 'n' don't act excited !' Applehead eyed them sternly over his shoulder. ' I calc'late we're just about t' walk into a trap.' He bent — on the side away from the ridge — low over his horse's shoulder and spoke while he appeared to be scanning the ground. ' I seen gun-shine up among them rocks, er I'm a goat. 'N'' if it's ISTavvies, you kin bet they got guns as good as ours, and kin shoot mighty nigh as straight as the best of us — except Lite, uh course, that's a expert.' He pointed aimlessly at the ground and edged toward the draw.
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' Ef they think we're jest follerin' a stray track, they'll likely hold off till we git back in the trail V start comin' on agin,' he explained craftily, still pointing at the ground ahead of him and still urging his horse to the draw. ' Ef they suspicion 't we're shyin' off from the ridge, they'll draw a fine bead V cut loose. I knowed it,' he added with a lugubrious complacency. ' I told ye all day that I could smell trouble a-comin'; I knowed dang well 't we'd stir up a mess uh fightin' over here. I never come onto this dang res'vation yit, that I didn't have t' kill off a mess uh Navvies before I got offen it agin.
' ISTow,' he said when they reached the edge of the sandy depression that had been gouged deeper by freshets and offered some shelter in case of attack, ' you boys jest fool around here on the aidge 'n' foller me down here like you was jest curious-like over what I'm locatin'. That'll keep them babies up there guessin' till we're all outa sight — meHbyl' He pulled down the corners of his mouth till his mustache-ends dropped a full inch, and lifted himself off his horse with a bored deliberation that was masterly in its convincingness. 230
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He stood looking at the ground for a moment and then began to descend leisurely into the draw, leading his horse behind him.
