g glare of the high sun, herding them ahead
of him, and as Pike turned for a last look backward at a bend of the
trail, the words of the old darkey chant came to him on the desert
air:

_Oh, there was a frog lived in the spring!_

CHAPTER X

A MEXICAN EAGLET

The silver wheel of the moon was rolling into the west when the Indian
girl urged the mule forward, and caught the bridle of the burro.

"What is it, Tula?" asked Rhodes, "we are doing well on the trail to
Mesa Blanca; why stop here?"

"Look," she said. "See you anything? Know you this place in the
road?"

He looked over the sand dunes and scrubby desert growths stretching
far and misty under the moon, and, then to the rugged gray range of
the mountain spur rising to the south. They were skirting the very
edge of it where it rose abruptly from the plain; a very great gray
upthrust of granite wall beside them was like a gray blade slanted out
of the plain. He had noticed it as one of the landmarks on the road to
Mesa Blanca, and on its face were a few curious scratchings or
peckings, one a rude sun symbol, and others of stars and waves of
water. He recalled remarking to Pike that it must have been a prayer
place for some of the old tribes.

"Yes, I know the place, when we reach this big rock it means that we
are nearing the border of the ranch, this rock wall tells me that. We
can be at Palomitas before noon."

"No," she said, and got down from the mule, "not to Palomitas now.
Here we carry the food, and here we hide the saddles, and the mule go
free. The burro we take, nothing else."

"Where is a place to hide saddles here?" and he made gesture toward
the great granite plane glistening in the moonlight.

"A place is found," she returned, "it is better we ride off the trail
at this place."

She did so, circling back the way they had come until they were
opposite a more broken part of the mountain side, then she began
deftly to help unsaddle.

"Break no brush and make all tracks like an Apache on the trail," she
said.

Miguel sat silent on the burro as if asleep. He had never once roused
to give heed to the words or the trail through the long ride. At times
where the way was rough he would mutter thanks at the help of Kit and
sink again into stupor.

"I can't spare that mule," protested Kit, but she nodded her head as
if that had been all thought out.

"He will maybe not go far, there is grass and a very little spring
belo