eeth; and at the conclusion of all this Pat felt that he
had met with approval. Also, he realized that he rather approved of the
man. Then came a volley of sounds he did not understand, and he found
himself touched with grave apprehension. But not for long. The man led
him across the ledge to a tiny stream trickling down the rocks, walking
with a quiet dignity he long since had learned to connect with
kindliness. This and the fact that he led him to water determined his
attitude.

Toward noon, as he was brooding over hunger pangs, he was startled by
excited gutturals among the men. Gazing, he saw one of the men standing
on the edge of the shelf, pointing out through the long canyon. With the
others, Pat turned his eyes that way. Between the distant V dotting the
mesa beyond rode a body of horsemen. They were not more than specks to
his eyes, proceeding slowly, so slowly, in fact, that while he could see
they were moving he yet could not see them move as they crawled across
the span between the canyon's mouth. Interested, gripped in the
contagion of the excitement round him, he kept his eyes upon the distant
specks until the sun had changed to another angle. But even after this
lapse of time, so distant were the horsemen, so wide the canyon's mouth,
they had traveled only half-way across the span. Yet he continued to
watch, wondering at the nervousness around him, conscious of steadily
increasing heat upon him, until the last of the slow-moving specks,
absorbed one by one by the canyon's wall, disappeared from view. Then he
turned his eyes elsewhere.

The men also turned away, but continued their excited talk. But even
they after a time relapsed into silence. What it was all about Pat did
not know. He knew it was something very serious, and suddenly fear came
to him. He saw some of the men lie down as if to sleep, and he feared
that they intended to remain here for ever, in this place absolutely
destitute of herbage. But after a time, made sluggish by the attitude of
the men, he himself attempted to drowse. But the heat pulsating up off
the rocks discouraged him, and he soon abandoned the attempt, standing
motionless in the hot sun.

A change came over him. He took to brooding over his many
discomforts--hunger pangs, loss of sleep, bothersome flies, the pain of
his swollen ankles. As the day advanced his ankles swelled more, and
grew worse, the flies became more troublesome, and his inner gnawings
more pronounced. So