Willard Holmes knew that he owed his Chief an apology and he promised himself to make it in the morning. But neither the explanation of the Seer nor the bitter humiliation that he had brought upon himself could turn his thoughts from Mr. Worth alone on the desert. To sleep was impossible. The banker might be——As he tossed in his blankets the engineer pictured to himself a hundred things that might have happened to Barbara's father.
It was some two hours later when Pat touched Abe Lee on the shoulder.
"All right, Pat," said the surveyor, fully awake and in possession of all his senses in an instant.
"There's a light bobbin' off into nowhere an' the lad's blankets are impty."
Fifteen minutes later a quiet voice within three feet of Willard Holmes asked: "Shall I go with you, sir?"
The eastern man jumped like a nervous woman. He had not heard the approach of the surveyor, who walked with the step of an Indian. "I couldn't sleep," he explained. "I thought I would follow the tracks a little way out at least. He may not be so far away as you think."
After Abe had taken time to make his cigarette he spoke meditatively.
"Mr. Worth rode a horse."
"I understand that," returned the man with the lantern tartly. "I saw him go this morning and I saw the horse to-night. This is the track."
From another cloud of smoke came the quiet, respectful answer: "But this is a mule's track, Mr. Holmes. It is Manuel Ramirez's mule. See, he has a broken shoe on the off fore-foot. I noticed it yesterday when I sent Manuel to hunt a water hole. Besides, Mr. Worth rode northeast; not in this direction."