you!" he rasped, belligerently.

"What?"

For answer the boot sailed across the camp.

The Professor popped his head out of the blanket, drew it back suddenly,
popped it out again, all strongly suggestive of a turtle.

There was a hoarse laugh, then silence, but none of those men forgot the
Prayer of the Horse.

CHAPTER XIX

ANOTHER CHANGE OF MASTERS

The next morning Pat had a change from the tedium of the desert. With
the others he struck into a narrow canyon that led out to a beaten trail
upon a rolling mesa. The trail wound diagonally across the mesa from the
south and lost itself in snake-like twistings among hills to the north.
Guided to the right into this trail, Pat found himself, a little before
noon, in a tiny Mexican settlement. It was a squat hamlet, nestling
comfortably among the hills, made up of a few adobes, a lone well, and a
general store. The store was at the far end, and toward this his young
master directed him.

As they rode on Pat noticed a queer commotion. Here and there a door
closed violently, only to open again cautiously as they drew opposite,
revealing sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes five pairs of black
eyes, all ranged timidly one pair over another in the opening. Dogs
skulked before their approach, snarling in strange savagery, while whole
flocks of chickens, ruffling in dusty hollows, took frantically to wing
at their coming, fleeing before them in unwonted disorder. And finally,
as they moved past the well, a half-grown boy, only partly dressed,
hurtled out of the side door of one house, raced across a yard to the
front door of another house, and slammed the door shut behind him in a
panic.

It was all very strange, and it made a deep impression upon him. Also it
evidently impressed the men, for as they drew rein in front of the
store, with its dust-dry shelves and haunting silence, all asked quick
questions of the proprietor, a little wizened, gimlet-eyed Mexican who
was leaning in the doorway. After glancing over their accoutrements with
a nod of understanding, he answered, explaining the reason for the
agitation.

It was all the result of a raid. Three days before a band of marauders
had swept down from the north, ransacked pigstys and chicken-coops and
corrals, and galloped off madly to the south. Yes, they had plundered
the store also. Indian renegades--yes. He could not say from what
reservation. Yes, they were armed, and in warpaint, and riding good