w. Come now, I show you that hidden trail."

She picked up one of the packs and led the burro.

"But we can't pack all this at once," decided Kit, who was beginning
to feel like the working partner in a nightmare.

"Two times," said Tula, holding up her fingers, "I show you."

She led the way, nervous, silent and in haste, as though in fear of
unseen enemies. Rhodes looked after her irritably. He was fagged and
worn out by one of the hardest trails he had ever covered, and was in
no condition to solve the curious problems of the Indian mind, but the
girl had proven a good soldier of the desert, and was, for the first
time, betraying anxiety, so as the burro disappeared in the blue mist,
and only the faint patter of his hoofs told the way he had gone, Kit
picked up the saddle and followed.

The way was rough and there was no trail, simply stumbling between
great jagged slabs hewn and tossed recklessly by some convulsion of
nature. Occasionally dwarfed and stunted brush, odorous with the faint
dew of night, reached out and touched his face as he followed up and
up with ever the forbidding lances of granite sharp edged against the
sky. From the plain below there was not even an indication that
progress would be possible for any human being over the range of
shattered rock, and he was surprised to turn a corner and find Tula
helping Miguel from the saddle in a little nook where scant herbage
grew.

"No, not in this place we camp," she said. "It is good only to hide
saddles and rest for my father. Dawn is on the trail, and the other
packs must come."

He would have remonstrated about a return trip, but she held up her
hand.

"It must be, if you would live," she said. "The eyes of you have not
yet seen what they are to see, it is not to be told. All hiding must
be with care, or----"

She made swift pantomime of sighting along a gun barrel at him, and
even in the shadows he could fancy the deadly half closing of her
ungirlish eyes. Tula did not play gaily.

Tired as he was, Kit grinned.

"You win," he said. "Let's hit what would be the breeze if this fried
land could stir one up."

They plodded back without further converse, secured the packs, and
this time it was Rhodes who led, as there appeared no possible way but
the one they had covered. Only once did he make a wrong turn and a
sharp "s-st" from the girl warned him of the mistake.

They found Miguel asleep, and Kit Rhodes would willingly have sunk
down b