in the thousand little noises that make night silence,
drew breath in preparation for the awe of the daily wonder. It lay
across the world heavy as a sea of lead, and as lifeless; deeply
unconscious, like an exhausted sleeper. The sky bent above, the stars
paling. Far away the mountains seemed to wait. And then,
imperceptibly, those in the east became blacker and sharper, while
those in the west became faintly lucent and lost the distinctness of
their outline. The change was nothing, yet everything. And suddenly a
desert bird sprang into the air and began to sing.

Senor Johnson caught the wonder of it. The wonder of it seemed to him
wasted, useless, cruel in its effect. He sighed impatiently, and drew
his hand across his eyes.

The desert became grey with the first light before the glory. In the
illusory revealment of it Senor Johnson's sharp frontiersman's eyes
made out an object moving away from him in the middle distance. In a
moment the object rose for a second against the sky line, then
disappeared. He knew it to be the buckboard, and that the vehicle had
just plunged into the dry bed of an arroyo.

Immediately life surged through him like an electric shock. He
unfastened the riata from its sling, shook loose the noose, and moved
forward in the direction in which he had last seen the buckboard.

At the top of the steep little bank he stopped behind the mesquite,
straining his eyes; luck had been good to him. The buckboard had
pulled up, and Brent Palmer was at the moment beginning a little fire,
evidently to make the morning coffee.

Senor Johnson struck spurs to his horse and half slid, half fell,
clattering, down the steep clay bank almost on top of the couple below.

Estrella screamed. Brent Palmer jerked out an oath, and reached for
his gun. The loop of the riata fell wide over him, immediately to be
jerked tight, binding his arms tight to his side.

The bronco-buster, swept from his feet by the pony's rapid turn,
nevertheless struggled desperately to wrench himself loose. Button,
intelligent at all rope work, walked steadily backward, step by step,
taking up the slack, keeping the rope tight as he had done hundreds of
times before when a steer had struggled as this man was struggling now.
His master leaped from the saddle and ran forward. Button continued to
walk slowly back. The riata remained taut. The noose held.

Brent Palmer fought savagely, even then. He kicked, he rolled ove