Zurich found but three of his confederacy available—Jim Scarboro and Bill Dorsey, the Jim and Bill of the horse camp and the shooting match—and Eric Anderson; but these were his best. They made a pack; they saddled horses; they filled canteens—and rifles.
Slim's car came to Cobre at half-past nine. The message from Dewing ran thus:
For Fishhook Mountain. Benavides, S., J., and another. Ten words.
* * * * *
Five minutes later the four confederates thundered south through the night. At daylight they made a change of horses at a far-lying Mexican rancheria, Zurich's check paying the shot; they bought two five-gallon kegs and lashed them to the pack, to be filled when needed. At nine in the morning they came to Fishhook Mountain.
Fishhook Mountain is midmost in the great desert; Quijotoa Valley, desolate and dim, lies to the east of it, gullied, dust-deviled, and forlorn.
The name gives the mountain's shape—two fishhooks bound together back to back, one prong to the east, the other to the west, the barbs pointing to the north. Sweetwater Spring is on the barb of the eastern hook; three miles west, on the main shank, an all but impassable trail climbed to Hardscrabble Tanks.
At the foot of this trail, Zurich and his party halted. Far out on the eastern plain they saw, through Zurich's spyglass, a slow procession, heading directly for them.
"We've beat 'em to it!" said Eric.
"That country out there is washed out something terrible, for all it looks so flat," said Jim Scarboro sympathetically. "They've got to ride slow. Gee, I bet it's hot out there!"