orth and south, gave
way to a pink indescribably rich and delicate. Steadily this pink crept
over the heavens, rolling up like the gradual unfolding of a giant
canvas, dragging along in its wake hues verging toward golden yellow,
until the whole eastern sky, aflame with the light of approaching day,
was a conflagration of pinks and yellows in all their manifold mixtures,
promising, but not yet realizing, a warmth which would dispel the spring
chill left by the long night. Then, with the whole east blazing with
molten gold, there came the feeling of actual warmth, and with it the
full radiance of day--bringing out in minute detail rock and arroyo and
verdant growth, and an expanse of desert unbroken by the least vestige
of animal life. At this absence of all that which would suggest the
presence of life--adobes, corrals, windmills--Pat awoke again to vague
uneasiness and fell to pondering his future under these men, whom he now
instinctively knew pursued ways outside the bounds of the civilization
of his past.

A voice behind, presumably that of the little man, interrupted the
protracted silence. It was high-pitched.

"How's that hoss a-holdin', Jim?"

Pat felt a slight twitch on the reins. Evidently the man had been in
deep thought, out of which the voice had startled him. Directly he made
answer.

"I got quality here, Glover--I guess. Can't never tell, though. He's a
good horse, but he mayn't pan out good for me."

There was further silence.

"Johnson," went on the high-pitched voice again, after a time, "did ye
git what Zeke said about the country down there?"

But the leader seemed not to hear. Straight as an arrow, bulking large
upon a little gray mare, he moved not the fraction of an inch with the
question. Whereupon the little man, after muttering something further
about Zeke, relapsed into silence.

Suddenly Pat stumbled and fell to his knees. He quickly regained his
feet, however, and resumed the steady forward grind. And grind it now
was becoming. His legs burned with a strange distress, his eyes ached
from loss of sleep. Throughout his body was a weariness new to him. He
was not accustomed to this ceaseless fox-trotting. He could not recall
the time when, even on their longest excursion, his mistress had forced
him like this. She had always considered him to the extent of granting
him many blissful periods of rest. He found himself wanting some such
consideration now. He felt that he would like to dr