The slanting sun was sending shadows long on the levels, and the hills were looming to the east in softest tones of gray and amethyst; the whitish green of desert growths lay between, and much of brown desert yet to cross.
“We can’t make the foothills tonight even though there is an early moon,” decided Kit. “But we can break camp at dawn and make it before the sun is high, and the water will hold out that long.”
“It will hold for Buntin’ and the mules, but what of Pardner?” asked the older man. “He’s not used to this hard pan gravel scratching.”
“But he’s thoroughbred, and he can stand it twelve hours more if I can, can’t you, old pal?” The tall roan with the dot of black between the eyes returned his owner’s caress by nosing his bare neck, and the hand held up to smooth the black mane.
“I’ll be glad enough to see him safe across the border in old Arizona,” observed Pike. “I can’t see how the herders saved him for you at Mesa Blanca when their own stock was picked of its best for the various patriots charging through the settlements.”
“Some way, Miguel, the Indian vaquero, managed it, or got his girl to hide it out. Whitely confessed that his Indian cattlemen are the most loyal he can find down here.”
“But it’s not a white man’s land––yet, and I’m downright glad he’s shipped his family north. There’s always hell enough in Sonora, but it’s a dovecote to what it’s bound to be before the end comes, and so, it’s no place for white men’s wives.”
“Right you are! Say, what was it Whitely heard down in Sinaloa concerning the Enchanted Cañon mine?”
“Oh, some old priest’s tale––the same dope we got with a different slant to it. The gold nuggets from some shrine place where the water gushed muy fuerte, by a sycamore tree. Same old nuggets sent out with the message, and after that the insurrection of the Indians, and the priests who found it never lived to get out. Why, Bub, that is nearly two hundred years ago! Stop and think of the noble Castilians going over Sonora with a fine tooth comb for that trail ever since and then think of the nerve of us!”
“Well, I’m nearer to it anyway than the Dutchman who trekked in from the south last year with copies of the old mission reports as guide, for the Yaquis killed him, and took his records, while they hide my horse for me.”