zona.

Ramon rode on next day, inquiring occasionally at a ranch or crossroad
store. Once or twice he was told that such a horse and rider had passed
many hours ago. At noon he rested and fed his pony. All that afternoon
he rode west. Night found him in the village of Downey, where he made
further inquiry, but without success.

Next morning he was on the road early, still riding west. No dream had
come to guide him, yet the memory of the former dream was keen. If that
dream were not true, all dreams were lies and prayer a useless ceremony.

For three days he rode, tracing the Senor Jim from town to town, but
never catching up with him. Once he learned that Waring had slept in the
same town, but had departed before daybreak. Ramon wondered why no dream
had come to tell him of this.

That day he rode hard. There were few towns on his way. He reined in
when he came to the fork where the southern highway branches from the
Overland Road. The western road led on across the mountains past the
great canon. The other swept south through cattle land and into the
rough hills beyond which lay Phoenix and the old Apache Trail. He hailed
a buck-board coming down the southern road. The driver had seen nothing
of a buckskin horse. Ramon hesitated, closing his eyes. Suddenly in the
darkness glared a golden sun, and against it the tiny, black silhouette
of a horseman. His dream could not lie.

Day by day the oval of his face grew narrower, until his cheek-bones
showed prominently. His lips lost their youthful fullness. Only his eyes
were the same; great, velvet-soft black eyes, gently questioning, veiled
by no subtlety, and brighter for the deepening black circles beneath
them.

The fifth day found him patiently riding west, despite the fact that all
trace of Waring had been lost. Questioned, men shook their heads and
watched him ride away, his lithe figure upright, but his head bowed as
though some blind fate drew him on while his spirit drowsed in stagnant
hopelessness.

To all his inquiries that day he received the same answer. Finally, in
the high country, he turned and retraced his way.

A week after he had left Stacey he was again at the fork of the highway.
The southern road ran, winding, toward a shallow valley. He took this
road, peering ahead for a ranch, or habitation of any kind. That
afternoon he stopped at a wayside store and bought crackers and canned
meat. He questioned the storekeeper. Yes, the storekeeper had s