featurings. During the first few
miles the trail had led broadly across the table-land, with the eastern
mountains withdrawing and the Lost River Range looming larger as its
lofty sky-line was struck out sharply against the sunset horizon.
Farther on, in the transition darkness between sunset and moon-rise, the
trail disappeared entirely; but so long as he was sure of the general
direction, Blount held on and gave the tireless little bronco a loose
rein. The Debbleby ranch lay among the farther foot-hills of the western
range, with the broad gulch of the Pigskin cutting a plain highway
through the mountains. If he could find one of the head-water streams of
the Pigskin, all of which took their rise in the gulches of the mesa,
there could be no danger of losing the way.

It was some little time after he had left the shoulderings of the
eastern range behind that a singular thing happened. Far away on his
right he heard the sound of galloping hoofs. Though the moon was nearly
full and the treeless landscape was bare of any kind of cover, he could
not make out the horseman who was evidently passing him and going in the
same direction. At first he thought it was some one who was making a
_detour_ to avoid him. Then he smiled at the absurdity of the guess and
concluded that he himself was off the trail. This conclusion was
confirmed a little later when two other travellers, announcing
themselves to the ear as the first one had, and also, like the first,
invisible to the sharpest eye-sweep of the moonlit plain, passed him at
speed.

After that Blount had the solitudes and vastnesses to himself, and it
was not until after the mesa-land had been crossed without a sign of a
water-leading gulch to guide him to the Pigskin, and the bronco was
patiently picking its way through the hogback of the western range, that
the boyish thing he had been led to do took shape as an adventure which
might have discomforting consequences.

For, after the hired bronco had wandered aimlessly through many gulches
and had climbed a good half-score of the hogback hills, the young man
from the East admitted that the boyhood memories were hopelessly and
altogether at fault in the deceptive moonlight. Blount gave the horse a
breathing halt on one of the hogbacks and tried to reconstruct the
puzzling hills into some featuring that he could remember. The effort
was fruitless. He was very thoroughly and painstakingly lost.

IV

THE HIGHBINDERS