od looking down at them.

"Anyway we have these," smiled the girl, but the cowboy shook his head.

"Those big ones are tomatoes, an' the others are corn, an' peas--but, it
don't make any difference." He pointed to the cans in disgust: "See
those ends bulged out that way? If we'd eat any of the stuff in those
cans we'd curl up an' die, _pronto_. Roll 'em back, Bat, we got grub
enough without 'em. Two days will put us through the bad lands an' we've
got plenty. We'll start when the moon comes up."

All four spent the afternoon in the meagre shade of the bull pine,
seeking some amelioration from the awful scorching heat. But it was
scant protection they got, and no comfort. The merciless rays of the sun
beat down upon the little plateau, heating the rocks to a degree that
rendered them intolerable to the touch. No breath of air stirred. The
horses ceased to graze and stood in the scrub with lowered heads and
wide-spread legs, sweating.

Towards evening a breeze sprang up from the southeast, but it was a
breeze that brought with it no atom of comfort. It blew hot and stifling
like the scorching blast of some mighty furnace. For an hour after the
sun went down in a glow of red the super-heated rocks continued to give
off their heat and the wind swept, sirocco-like, over the little camp.
Before the after-glow had faded from the sky the wind died and a
delicious coolness pervaded the plateau.

"It hardly seems possible," said Alice, as she breathed deeply of the
vivifying air, "that in this very spot only a few hours ago we were
gasping for breath.

"You can always bank on the nights bein' cold," answered Tex, as he
proceeded to build the fire. "We'll rustle around and get supper out of
the way an' the outfit packed an' we can pull our freight as soon as it's
light enough. The moon ought to show up by half-past ten or eleven, an'
we can make the split rock water-hole before it gets too hot for the
horses to travel. It's the hottest spell for June I ever saw and if she
don't let up tomorrow the range will be burnt to a frazzle."

Bat cast a weather-wise eye toward the sky which, cloudless, nevertheless
seemed filmed with a peculiar haze that obscured the million lesser stars
and distorted the greater ones, so that they showed sullen and angry and
dull like the malignant pustules of a diseased skin.

"A'm t'ink she gon' for bus' loose pret' queek."

"Another thunder storm and a deluge of rain?" asked Alice