, he attempted to take the lead. The girl quickened her pace.

He had lowered more than one record in his college track meets; but the
girl was accustomed to rough ground, and he was not. She was still side
by side with him when he dashed up around the bend in the arroyo.

Both held their rifles ready to fire as they rushed the rear ledges of
the jagged crag. From the upper side the slopes around were all open to
view. Lennon came to a panting halt and stared about in frank surprise.
He had fully expected to see the limp form of a dead Apache lying on the
rocks.

The girl sprang past him into a niche of the crag and bent to pick up a
cartridge shell.

"A thirty-two," she said. "Same calibre as my rifle.... And look at this
track--Apache-made moccasin. Easy to tell the print from that of a Pima
or Moqui."

To Lennon the track was only a small narrow blur.

"I was right," added the girl. "No trace of blood. You scored a clean
miss and the bird has flown. All safe around here now, but may be
dangerous on the trail ahead. Happens I know that a bunch of bronchos
are loose over this way. They're looking for trouble."

"Bronchos? You mean wild horses--mustangs?"

"No--Apaches. Renegades are called bronchos. What do you figure on doing
now, with your burro dead? Out prospecting, I noticed by your outfit.
What were you heading up this way for, anyhow? The agents don't want
prospectors on the Moqui or Navaho reservations."

"But I didn't intend to cross the boundary," explained Lennon. "About
seventy miles on around this trail bend, I was to strike in eastward to
a three-towered mountain. Old friend of mine discovered a big copper
vein there in the early 'Nineties. A party of Indians ran him out of the
country and so maimed him that he never could return."

"Why, that must be Cripple Sim and his----" The girl checked herself and
tightened her lips. "Well, what you going to do about it? Hike back to
the railroad?"

"Certainly--to get another burro. We might return together for mutual
protection, unless you'd rather trust to your pony's heels."

The girl looked him up and down with sharp appraisal.

There was no hint of timidity in his smile.

"Don't figure there's any joke about a bunch of bronchos," she said.
"They like to kill just for pure devilment, and when they can make it
without risk, their choice of game is a white man."

"Or woman," put in Lennon, no longer smiling.

"Choicer still. But a man will do.