cellent location for an ambush, and
both men breathed more freely when they had passed out of it into more
open country upon a narrow tableland between the first foothills and the
main range of mountains.

Here again was the trail well marked, and when Eddie, looking ahead, saw
that it appeared to lead in the direction of a vivid green spot close to
the base of the gray brown hills he gave an exclamation of assurance.

"We're on the right trail all right, old man," he said. "They's water
there," and he pointed ahead at the green splotch upon the gray. "That's
where they'd be havin' their village. I ain't never been up here so I
ain't familiar with the country. You see we don't run no cattle this
side the river--the Pimans won't let us. They don't care to have no
white men pokin' round in their country; but I'll bet a hat we find a
camp there."

Onward they rode toward the little spot of green. Sometimes it was
in sight and again as they approached higher ground, or wound through
gullies and ravines it was lost to their sight; but always they kept it
as their goal. The trail they were upon led to it--of that there
could be no longer the slightest doubt. And as they rode with their
destination in view black, beady eyes looked down upon them from the
very green oasis toward which they urged their ponies--tiring now from
the climb.

A lithe, brown body lay stretched comfortably upon a bed of grasses at
the edge of a little rise of ground beneath which the riders must pass
before they came to the cluster of huts which squatted in a tiny natural
park at the foot of the main peak. Far above the watcher a spring of
clear, pure water bubbled out of the mountain-side, and running downward
formed little pools among the rocks which held it. And with this water
the Pimans irrigated their small fields before it sank from sight again
into the earth just below their village. Beside the brown body lay a
long rifle. The man's eyes watched, unblinking, the two specks far below
him whom he knew and had known for an hour were gringos.

Another brown body wormed itself forward to his side and peered over the
edge of the declivity down upon the white men. He spoke a few words in
a whisper to him who watched with the rifle, and then crawled back again
and disappeared. And all the while, onward and upward came Billy Byrne
and Eddie Shorter, each knowing in his heart that if not already, then
at any moment a watcher would discover them and