miles to the lower well of La Partida, and if by any
stroke of fortune Cap Pike had failed to make good--Cap was old, and
liable to----

Then through the dusk of night he heard, quite near in the trail
ahead, a curious thing, the call of a bird--and not a night bird!

It was a tremulous little call, and sent a thrill of such wild joy
through his heart that he drew back the mule with a sharp cruel jerk,
and held his breath to listen. Was he going _loco_ from lack of
sleep,--lack of water,--and dreams of----

It came again, and he answered it as he plunged forward down a
barranca and up the other side where a girl sat on a roan horse under
the stars:--his horse! also his girl!

If he had entertained any doubts concerning the last--but he knew now
he never had; a rather surprising fact considering that no word had
ever been spoken of such ownership!--they would have been dispelled by
the way she slipped from the saddle into his arms.

"Oh, and you didn't forget! you didn't forget!" she whimpered with her
head hidden against his breast. "I--I'm mighty glad of that. Neither
did I!"

"Why, Lark-child, you've been right alongside wherever I heard that
call ever since I rode away," he said patting her head and holding her
close. He had a horrible suspicion that she was crying,--girls were
mysterious! "Now, now, now," he went on with a comforting pat to each
word, "don't worry about anything. I'm back safe, though in big need
of a drink,--and luck will come your way, and----"

She tilted her cantin to him, and began to laugh.

"But it has come my way!" she exulted. "O Kit, I can't keep it a
minute, Kit--we did find that sheepskin!"

"What? A sheepskin?" He had no recollection of a lost sheepskin.

"Yes, Cap Pike and I! In the bottom of an old chest of daddy's! We're
all but crazy because it came just when we were planning to give up
the ranch if we had to, and now that you are here--!" her sentence
ended in a happy sigh of utter content.

"Sure, now that I'm here," he assented amicably, "we'll stop all that
moving business--_pronto_. That is if we live to get to water. What do
you know about any?"

"Two barrels waiting for you, and Cap rustling firewood, but I heard
the wagon, and----"

"Sure," he assented again. "Into the saddle with you and we'll get
there. The folks are all right, but the cayuses----"

A light began to blaze on the level above, and the mules, smelling
water, broke into a momentary trot and w