d wash where the last
flood had ripped its way to the Salagua; and on the opposite side,
close up against the base of the cliff, a flash of white walls and the
shadow of a _ramada_ showed where man had built his puny dwelling high
in order to escape its fury. At their feet lay the ranch pasture, a
broad elbow of the valley rich with grass and mesquite trees and
fenced in with barbed wire that ran from cliff to cliff. Beyond the
eastern wall the ground was rough and broken, cut up by innumerable
gulches and waterways, and above its ridges there rose the forbidding
crags of a black butte whose shoulders ran down to and confined the
silvery river. Across the river and to the south the land was even
rougher, rising in sheer precipices, above the crests of which towered
a mighty needle of rock, standing out against the sky like a cathedral
spire, yet of a greater dignity and magnificence--purple with the
regal robes of distance.

"That's Weaver's Needle," volunteered Creede, following his
companion's eyes. "Every lost mine for a hundred miles around here is
located by sightin' at that peak. The feller it's named after was
picked up by the Apaches while he was out lookin' for the Lost
Dutchman and there's been a Jonah on the hidden-treasure business ever
since, judgin' by the results.

"D'ye see that big butte straight ahead? That's Black Butte. She's so
rough that even the mountain sheep git sore-footed, so they say--we
have to go up there on foot and drive our cattle down with rocks. Old
Bill Johnson's place is over the other side of that far butte; he's
got a fine rich valley over there--the sheep haven't got in on him
yet. You remember that old feller that was drunk down at Bender--well,
that's Bill. Calls his place Hell's Hip Pocket; you wait till you try
to git in there some day and you'll know why."

He paused and turned to the north.

"Might as well give you the lay of the land," he said. "I'll be too
busy to talk for the next month. There's the Four Peaks, northeast of
us, and our cows run clean to the rocks. They's more different brands
in that forty miles than you saw in the whole Cherrycow country, I bet
ye. I've got five myself on a couple hundred head that the old man
left me--and everybody else the same way. You see, when the sheep come
in down on the desert and around Moreno's we kept pushin' what was
left of our cattle east and east until we struck the Peaks--and here
we are, in a corner. The old judge h