“Well, that is Baboquivari. The Baboquivari, the Coyote, the Roskruge, and the Waterman Mountains are in a line north and south with the Pozo Verdes at the southern end of the line extending into Mexico. On this side of those ranges the country is rather well covered by cattle ranches and the main road to San Fernando, Sasabe and Mexico, and there is a custom house on the line. I do not think Sonora Jack would go that way.
“On the other side of that line of mountains lies the thinly settled Papago Indian Reservation. If this trail here continues its course to the west, it will pass north of those Waterman Mountains which are at the northern end of that line of ranges which mark the eastern boundary of the reservation. The Vaca Hills in the Papago country lie just beyond. They are surrounded by barren desert. There are no ranches—no roads. There is no place in all this country more lonely, and there is a little water there. Sonora Jack could have reached the Vaca Hills by daybreak this morning. If he spent this day there, he will turn south from that point and will be making his way to-night through the Papago Reservation to the Mexican line. I have heard that his old headquarters were in Mexico, south of the Nariz and Santa Rosa Mountains, which are on the border.
“But if I am wrong, and he went south on this side of the Baboquivaris, then he has gone through the Tucson range by the pass at Picture Rocks and we will find his trail there. Come!”
By midnight, they were at Picture Rocks—a narrow cut through the Tucson Mountains where the rock walls of the pass are covered with the strange picture writings of a prehistoric people. At places, the winding passageway is scarcely wider than the tracks of a wagon, so that it was not difficult for the Indian, by the light of an improvised torch, to assure himself that Sonora Jack had not gone that way.
With his customary exclamation, “Good!” the Indian swung into his saddle and, leaving the Tucson Mountains behind, pushed out into the desert with the sureness of a sailor steering toward a harbor light. And now, through the darkness of the night, he set a pace that taxed the endurance of the horses. The white man followed blindly.
Before they were out of the pass, Hugh had lost all sense of direction. In the desert, the darkness seemed to close in about them like a wall. The shadowy form of the Indian, the ghostly shapes of the desert vegetation, and the weird emptiness of those wide houseless spaces, gave him a feeling of unreality. Vainly he strained his eyes to glimpse a light. There was no light. Save for the soft thud of the horses’ feet, the squeaking of the saddle leathers and the jingle of the bridle chains, there was no sound. He felt that it must all be a dream from which presently he would awake. And somewhere under those same cold stars that looked down with such indifference, Marta, too, was riding—riding. Where was the outlaw leading her and to what end? Where was she at that moment? What madness to think that Natachee could ever find them in that seemingly infinite space.
After a time, which to Hugh seemed an age, they were again riding among the lower hills of a small desert range. Another half hour and Natachee stopped. Slipping to the ground and giving his bridle rein to Edwards, he said:
“We are at the northern end of the Waterman range. If they went to the Vaca Hills, they came this way. We will pick up their trail at daylight. There is water not far from here. Wait until I return.”
As noiseless as a shadow, the Indian disappeared.