dezvous, where Pete and Joe Benavides awaited their coming with
four saddle horses, the pick of the Benavides _caballada_, and two
pack-horses. Except for a small package of dynamite--a dozen sticks
securely wrapped, an afterthought that Pete put into effect between
poker game and supper-time--the packs contained only the barest
necessities, with water kegs, to be filled later. The four friends were
riding light; but each carried a canteen at the saddle horn, and a rifle.

They rode quietly out through the southern end of the town, Joe Benavides
leading the way. They followed a trail through Robles' Pass and westward
through the Altar Valley. They watered at the R E Ranch at three in the
morning, waking Barnaby Robles; him they bound to silence; and there they
let their horses rest and eat of the R E corn while they prepared a hasty
breakfast. Then they pushed on, to waste no brief coolness of the morning
hours. Pete kept word and spirit of his promise to Dewing; not until day
was broad in the sky did he tell Stanley of Dewing's disclosure, tidings
that displeased Stanley not at all.

It was a gay party on that bright desert morning, though the way led
through a dismal country of giant cactus, cholla and mesquite. Pete noted
with amusement that Stanley and Frank-Francis showed some awkwardness and
restraint with each other. Their clipped _g_'s were carefully restored
and their conversation was otherwise conducted on the highest plane. The
dropping of this superfluous final letter had become habitual with
Stanley through carelessness and conformance to environment. With Boland
it was a matter of principle, practiced in a spirit of perversity, in
rebellion against a world too severely regulated.

By ten in the morning the heat drove them to cover for sleep and nooning
in the scanty shade of a mesquite motte. Long before that, the two young
gentlemen had arrived at an easier footing and the _g_'s were once more
comfortably dropped. But poor Boland, by this time, was ill at ease in
body. He was not inexperienced in hard riding of old; and in his home on
the northern tip of Manhattan, where the Subway goes on stilts and the
Elevated runs underground, he had allowed himself the luxury of a saddle
horse and ridden no little, in a mild fashion. But he was in no way
hardened to such riding as this.

Mr. Peter Johnson was gifted with prescience beyond the common run; but
for this case, which would have been the first thought fo