itiative of his enterprise.

Where the road crossed the creek bed to continue northward, a trail
branched off and followed up the stream to the little ranch house by
the three cottonwood trees. Here the creek had not yet begun to cut an
arroyo and had washed merely a course five or six feet deep and some
fifty feet wide through the mesa, so that from a distance the shallow
gash was invisible and the ground appeared unbroken. It was because of
the flat character of the mesa, too, that Bryant on reaching the bank
of the stream was able to see on the opposite side two persons a
quarter of a mile off riding toward him; women, he perceived. Far
north of them on the road, a black spot in a haze of dust, seemingly
motionless but as one could guess advancing rapidly, was an
automobile.

Bryant rode his horse down into the creek bed and turned him aside to
a small pool on the upper side of the crossing, under the cut-bank,
where the horse thrust his muzzle into the water and drank greedily.
The rider swung himself out of the saddle, knelt a pace beyond, where
the rivulet trickled into the pool, and also drank.

"Wet anyway, even if warm, eh, Dick?" he remarked, when done. "Don't
drink it all, old scout; leave a swallow for the ladies." Still on his
knees he looked appraisingly down the creek and then up it, and added
derisively, "Some stream, this Perro, some stream!"

After rolling and lighting a cigarette, he meditated for a time in
the same kneeling position. His horse finished drinking and moved a
step nearer his master, where he stood with head lowered, water
dripping from his lip, body inert. But presently he pricked his ears
and turning his head toward the other bank gave a low whinny. Bryant
got to his feet.

The two women he had beheld at a distance had now reached the ford.
Their ponies snuffing water immediately dipped into the creek bed and
crossed its sandy bottom with quickened steps. Young women the riders
were, scarcely more than girls, it seemed to Bryant; wearing divided
khaki skirts and white shirt waists and wide-brimmed straw hats tied
with thongs under their chins. In this region where white men were
none too numerous, and women of their own kind scarcer yet, and girls
scarcest of all, the presence here of the pair aroused in the young
fellow a lively interest.

He led Dick aside that their ponies might approach the pool.

"Thank you; they are very thirsty," said the nearer girl, with a nod.
The po