Spain gathered without moving his horse outside a
circle of thirty feet. What did it mean? Page might have fallen in
with cronies from the Gap, abandoned his job, and started for Sleepy
Cat, but this was unlikely. He might have encountered enemies, been
pointedly advised to keep away from the Gap, and pretended to start
for Sleepy Cat, to avoid trouble with them. Deeming the second the
more probable conclusion, de Spain, absorbed in his speculations,
continued toward the Gap to see whether he could not pick up the trail
of Page's rig farther on.

Within a mile a further surprise awaited him. The two horsemen, who
had headed for the Gap after stopping Page, had left the trail, turned
to the south, down a small draw, which would screen them from sight,
and set out across the desert.

No trail and no habitation lay in the direction they had taken--and it
seemed clearer to de Spain that the second horse was a led horse.
There was a story in the incident, but his interest lay in following
Page's movements, and he spurred swiftly forward to see whether his
messenger had resumed the Gap trail and gone on with his mission. He
followed this quest almost to the mountains, without recovering any
trace of Page's rig. He halted. It was certain now that Page had not
gone into the Gap.

Perplexed and annoyed, de Spain, from the high ground on which he sat
his horse, cast his eyes far out over the desert. The brilliant
sunshine flooded it as far as the eye could reach. He scanned the
vast space without detecting a sign of life anywhere, though none
better than he knew that any abundance of it might be there. But his
gaze caught something of interest on the farthest northern horizon,
and on this his scrutiny rested a long time. A soft brown curtain rose
just above the earth line against the blue sky. Toward the east it
died away and toward the west it was cut off by the Superstition
peaks.

De Spain, without giving the weather signs much thought, recognized
their import, but his mind was filled with his own anxieties and he
rode smartly back toward Calabasas, because he was not at ease over
the puzzles in the trail. When he reached the depression where the
horsemen had, without any apparent reason, turned south, he halted.
Should he follow them or turn north to follow Page's wanderings? If
Page had been scared away from the Gap, for a time, he probably had no
information that de Spain wanted, and de Spain knew his cunning and
pers