"That was jest Sandy's way of lettin' me down easy. Sam'll go, but I'll stay to home. I'm goin' to give away my guns an' learn milkin'. Sandy's got about three hours of daylight. He'll go 'cross lots on the hawss, fur as he reckons the sign shows safe, an' no man can read sign better'n Sandy. Then he'll play snake an' he can beat an Indian at takin' cover. He'll drift over open country 'thout bein' spotted an', up there in the range, they'll never see, smell or hear him till he's on top of 'em an' his guns are doin' the talkin'. You ought to see him in action. I've done it. I've been in action with him, me an' Sam. Now all I'm good fo' is a close quarters ra'r an' tumble. He w'udn't take Sam erlong fo' fear of hurtin' my feelin's though even Sam 'ud be some handicap to Sandy on this trip of scoutin'.
"Sam can't take cover extra good, though he shoots middlin'. Sandy, he shoots like lightnin' fast an' straight."
"But there are four against him, at least."
"Fo' what?" asked Mormon with a look of scorn. "Plimsoll an' three of his cronies. Mebbe one or two mo' chucked in fo' good measure. What of it? Yeller, all of 'em, yeller as the belly of a Gila River pizen lizard. On'y way the odds 'ud be even w'ud be fo' them to git the drop on Sandy an' it can't be done. He's got his fightin' face on an' that means hands an' heart an' eyes an' brain an' every inch of him lined up to win. Sandy fights with his head an' he's got the heart to back it. Hell's bells, marm, beggin' yo' pardon ag'in, I ain't worryin' none erbout Sandy! I ain't seen him lose out yet. I'm cussin' about me—warmin' an armchair an' waddlin' round like a fall hawg."
Mormon slammed his hat on the floor and jumped on it and Miss Nicholson fled, a little reassured by Mormon's eulogy, anxious to talk it over with Sam.
Sandy, his eyes like the mica flakes that show in gray granite, his humorous mouth a stern line, little bunches of muscles at the junction of his jaws, held the pinto to a steady lope that ate up the ground, drifting straight and fast across country for the opening in the mesa that he had marked as the short-cut to the spot described by Donald Keith. Through gray sage and ferny mesquite Pronto moved, elastic of every sinew, springy of pastern, without fret or fuss though he had not been ridden for two days. Even as the man fitted the saddle, counterbalanced every supple movement of his steed, so Sandy's will dominated that of Pronto, making his mood his master's, telling him the occasion was one for best efforts with no place for wasted energy.
"We're goin' to cross a hard country, li'l' hawss," said Sandy. "But I figger we can make it. Got to make it, Pronto. An' we're sure goin' to. Doin' it fo' her."
Every now and then he talked his thoughts aloud, as the lonely rider will and, if the pinto could not understand, he listened with pricked ears.
"Grit must have been hurt pritty bad, I'm afraid. Still he might have trailed her 'stead of comin' back. Sun's gettin' to'ards the no'th."
He glanced at the luminary, slowly descending. "But the moon's up already an' she's full." He looked to where a wan plate of battered silver hung in the east. "We got some luck on our side, Pronto, after all.