n an easy slope,
and at others in a sheer rise of rock wall. The surface of the little
plane showed no trace of the black of the lava rock of the lower levels
but was of the character of the open bench and covered with buffalo
grass and bunch grass with here and there a sprinkling of prickly
pears. The four dismounted and, in the last light of the moon,
surveyed their surroundings.

"You make camp, Bat," ordered the Texan, "while me an' Win hunt up the
spring. He said it was on the east side where there was a lot of loose
rock along the edge of the bull pine. We'll make the camp there, too,
where the wood an' water will be handy."

Skirting the plateau, Tex led the way toward a point where a few
straggling pines showed gaunt and lean in the rapidly waning moonlight.

"It ought to be somewheres around here," he said, as he stopped to
examine the ground more closely. "He said you had to pile off the
rocks 'til you come to the water an' then mud up a catch-basin." As he
talked, the cowboy groped among the loose rocks on his hands and knees,
pausing frequently to lay his ear to the ground. "Here she is!" he
exclaimed at length. "I can hear her drip! Come on, Win, we'll build
our well."

Alice stood close beside her horse watching every move with intense
interest.

"Who would have thought to look for water there?" she exclaimed.

"I knew we'd find it just as he said," answered the Texan gravely. "He
was a good man, in his way--never run off no horses except from outfits
that could afford to lose 'em. Why, they say, he could have got plumb
away if he'd shot the posse man that run onto him over by the Mission.
But he knew the man was a nester with a wife an' two kids, so he took a
chance--an' the nester got him."

"How could he?" cried the girl, "after----"

The Texan regarded her gravely. "It was tough. An' he probably hated
to do it. But he was a sworn-in posse man, an' the other was a
horse-thief. It was just one of those things a man's got to do. Like
Jim Larkin, when he was sheriff, havin' to shoot his own brother, an'
him hardly more'n a kid that Jim had raised. But he'd gone plumb bad
an' swore never to be taken alive, so Jim killed him--an' then he
resigned. There ain't a man that knows Jim, that don't know he'd
rather a thousan' times over had the killin' happen the other way
'round. But he was a man. He had it to do--an' he done it."

Alice shuddered: "And then--what became of him, then