e desert day
approached; the hours of reckoning for unknowing and unprepared
travellers.

Jag Ear's bells had a faint plaintiveness at intervals and again their
jingling was rapid and hysterical, as he tried to make up the distance
lost through a lapse in effort. He had ceased altogether to wiggle the
sliver of ear--the baton with which he conducted his orchestra--because
this was clearly a waste of energy. P.D.'s steps still retained their
dogged persistence, but their regular beat was slower, like that of a
clock that needs winding. His head hung low. Wrath of God was no more and
no less melancholy than when he was rusticating in Jack's yard. It seemed
as if his sad visage, so reliably and grandly sad, might still be
marching on toward the indeterminate line of the horizon when his legs
were worn off his body.

"Firio, you brown son of the sun," said Jack, with a sudden display of
his old-time trail imagery, "you prolix, garrulous Firio, you knew! You
had the great equine trio ready, and look at the miles they have done
since sunset to prove it! You, P.D., favorite trooper of our household
cavalry! You, Wrath of God, don't be afraid to make an inward smile, for
your face will never tell on you! You, Jag Ear, beat a tattoo with the
fragment of the gothic glory of burrohood, for we rest, to go on all the
faster when the heat of the day is past!"

While Prather and Nogales were riding over hell's apron, their pursuers
had saddles off hot, moist backs, over which knowing hands were run to
find no sores. After they had eaten, P.D. and Wrath of God and Jag Ear
stood in drooping relaxation which would make the most of every moment of
respite. Jack and Firio, with a blanket fastened to the rifles as
standards, made a patch of shade in which they lay down.

"Have a nap, Firio," said Jack. "I will wake you when it is time
to start."

"And you--you no sleep?" asked Firio.

"I could not sleep to-day," Jack answered. "I don't feel as if I could
sleep until I've seen Prather and heard his story--my story--Firio!" And
he lay with eyes half closed, staring at the steel blue overhead.

It was well after midday when they mounted for the remainder of the
journey. The Eternal Painter was shaking out the silvery cloud-mist of
his beard across a background that had a softer, kindlier, deeper blue.
The shadows of the ponies and their riders and Jag Ear and his pack no
longer lay under their bellies heavily, but were stretched out to