anco Sol, saddled him,
and tied him to the thickest clump of mesquite.

"Sol, we'll have a drink pretty soon," he said, patting the splendid
neck.

Gale meant it. He would not eat till he had watered his horse. Sol had
gone nearly forty-eight hours without a sufficient drink, and that was
long enough, even for a desert-bred beast. No three raiders could keep
Gale away from that well. Taking his rifle in hand, he faced up the
arroyo. Rabbits were frisking in the short willows, and some were so
tame he could have kicked them. Gale walked swiftly for a goodly part
of the distance, and then, when he saw blue smoke curling up above the
trees, he proceeded slowly, with alert eye and ear. From the lay of
the land and position of trees seen by daylight, he found an easier and
safer course that the one he had taken in the dark. And by careful
work he was enabled to get closer to the well, and somewhat above it.

The Mexicans were leisurely cooking their morning meal. They had two
fires, one for warmth, the other to cook over. Gale had an idea these
raiders were familiar to him. It seemed all these border hawks
resembled one another--being mostly small of build, wiry, angular,
swarthy-faced, and black-haired, and they wore the oddly styled Mexican
clothes and sombreros. A slow wrath stirred in Gale as he watched the
trio. They showed not the slightest indication of breaking camp. One
fellow, evidently the leader, packed a gun at his hip, the only weapon
in sight. Gale noted this with speculative eyes. The raiders had
slept inside the little adobe house, and had not yet brought out the
carbines. Next Gale swept his gaze to the corral, in which he saw more
than a dozen horses, some of them fine animals. They were stamping and
whistling, fighting one another, and pawing the dirt. This was
entirely natural behavior for desert horses penned in when they wanted
to get at water and grass.

But suddenly one of the blacks, a big, shaggy fellow, shot up his ears
and pointed his nose over the top of the fence. He whistled. Other
horses looked in the same direction, and their ears went up, and they,
too, whistled. Gale knew that other horses or men, very likely both,
were approaching. But the Mexicans did not hear the alarm, or show any
interest if they did. These mescal-drinking raiders were not scouts.
It was notorious how easily they could be surprised or ambushed.
Mostly they were ignorant, thick-skulled peons.