awn till dusk, traversed by a few fleecy clouds, lies the
turquoise sky of New Mexico.

At a certain point in the range a small canon opens upon the mesa with
a gush of gravel and sand that flows a short way into the sagebrush
and forms a creek bed. Tucked back in the little canon there is a
considerable growth of bushes and trees, cool and fresh-looking in the
shadow of the gorge during the summer season, a splash of vivid green
there at the bottom of the dusty gray mountain, but at the canon's
mouth this verdure ceases.

Only an insignificant stream of water ran, one day, in the stony creek
bed that meandered out upon the mesa, and it appeared under the hot
July sun and among the hot stones for all the world like a rivulet of
liquid glass. That was all the mesa had to show, only its endless gray
sagebrush and the creek bed almost dry--unless one should reckon the
three parched cottonwood trees beside the stream, a little way down
from the canon, and the flat-roofed adobe house near by, and the empty
corral behind built of aspen poles. In that immensity of mountain and
mesa the house looked like a brick of sun-baked mud, the corral like a
child's device of straws, the three cottonwoods like three twigs stuck
in the earth. Or, at any rate, that is how they appeared to a horseman
regarding them from the main mesa trail a mile away.

The rider, a slender tanned young fellow of about twenty-eight, sat in
the saddle with the relaxed ease of habit which allowed his body to
accommodate itself to the steady jogging trot of his horse. A roll
comprising clothes wrapped in a black rubber coat was tied behind the
cantle. His Stetson hat was tilted up at the rear and down in front
almost on his nose--a thin, bony nose, slightly curved and with the
suggestion of a hook in the tip, just the sort of nose to accord with
his lean, sunburnt cheeks and clean-cut chin and straight-lipped
mouth. Under the hat brim drawn forward to his line of vision his
eyes, notwithstanding his air of lounging indolence, gazed forth keen
and observant. He had the appearance of a man who might be seeking a
few stray cattle, or riding to town for mail, and in no particular
hurry about it, either, this hot afternoon; but, for all that, Lee
Bryant was proceeding on important business--important for him,
anyhow. When everything one possesses is about to be risked on a
venture, the matter is naturally vital; and at this moment he was
moving straight to the in