The drive began one morning in the dark long before the dawn. Steve estimated that he could make the Rio Frio the first night and had arranged beforehand with the Talbot boys for the night's pasturage. The second day would find them on the edge of the bad lands; his wagons hauling baled hay were to push on ahead and be waiting at the only sufficient water-holes to be found within a number of miles. San Juan in four days was the schedule.
"We'll lose weight all along the road," he conceded. "But it can't be helped. And a couple of day's rest and lots of feed and water in San Juan before Doan shows up will put back a part of the lost weight."
He had made allowances for a hard drive. Nevertheless the actuality was a sterner matter than he had foreseen. All along the way the feed was scant. Water was low in the holes, Rio Frio for the first time in years was a mere series of shallow pools. The blazing heat was such that men and horses and steers all suffered terribly.
At the end of the second day he ordered a full dozen of the less hardy of his beasts cut out from the herd and turned into a neighboring range; it was questionable if they would have been able to drag on the two remaining days and even had they done so they would have brought no top price from the buyer.
The drive was made on schedule time. Circumstances not only permitted but insisted. There were no places for loitering, there were only the major water-holes upon which Steve had counted, the distances between them regulating each day's progress. And so the stock was in San Juan a full two days before the time for Doan's coming.
For Steve the two days dragged heavily. He camped with his herd on the edge of the settlement, allowing the boys to disport themselves as they saw fit a large part of the time, himself having little desire for the bad whiskey and crooked gaming of La Casa Blanca.
Tuesday morning Doan was to arrive. Steve met the stage and one glance showed him that Doan was not on it. He asked the driver if he knew anything of Doan and the man shook his head. Steve supposed that he was coming up from the railroad by auto and so idled about the town all forenoon, waiting.
By midday, when Doan still failed to put in an appearance, Steve had grown impatient. By the middle of the afternoon his impatience gave place to anger. He had kept his appointment bringing his herds over a hard trail, and Doan with nothing to do but travel luxuriously, had failed him.
But it was not until the stage came in Wednesday morning and again brought no Doan and no word of Doan that Steve telephoned a message to the nearest Western Union office at Bidwell demanding to know what the trouble was. Not only was he on heavy expenses; his mood never had been one to take kindly to the long waiting game. And yet he was forced to wait all that day and all the next day with no word from Doan.
He telegraphed again Wednesday night, a third time Thursday morning. No answers came. But a little before noon, Thursday, Doan came. Came by automobile from the railroad, a man with him. Steve saw them as they drove into town; he noted Doan's thin face and his tall form in the gray linen duster; then he marked the man with him. The man was Blenham.