"At dawn they'll see our tracks."
Dawn broke, and we were rising a slope of sand-drift, with acres of naked rock ahead of us.
"Haw!" said Curly, leading me to the left until we entered the rock field. "Gee," she called, and we crossed the rocks to the right. "Follow the rocks—shy wide of any sand." I followed for a mile, until a little hill shut off the route we had come by. "Dismount," she said, and I stepped down by the edge of the sands. She made me take the saddle blankets, the oilskin coats, and a serape (Mexican blanket), and make a pathway of them across the sand, on which she rode, leading my horse, while I renewed the track in front of her for a couple of hundred feet. So we left horse sign on the sand which looked a whole fortnight old. Then, gathering the clothes, I mounted, and we curved away among sandhills for half an hour, sailing along at a lope until we came to a patch of gramma grass. "Let the hawsses graze," said Curly, and sat side-saddle, resting while she smoked a cigarette. I did the same, and the tracks we left now were those of grazing horses, not those of travellers. Then I resaddled, and all set, we rode off again to the north. The frost had spoiled our scent; the blanket play and grazing play had sure discouraged trackers.
"Curly," says I, "you heap big Injun!"
"I lil' small robber," she answered, "givin' away trade secrets."
A few miles northward we circled up beyond a ridge of hills, to a good look-out point. From there we could see the Marshal's posse small as ants in the distance, ranging around on the rock flat, from whence they presently crawled off south, looking a lot subdued. Then I unsaddled, while Curly killed out a few centipedes, scorpions, rattlers, and other local vermin, to make our sleep comfy under the rocks.
At noon, when the heat awoke us, we rode on to Texas Bob's big spring, reaching his camp by sundown. There we made up for lost meals by taking in four at once. Mrs. Bob gave us jerked beef, spiced bread and coffee; her wild range kids rubbed down our horses, watered them and fed; the old gentleman himself poured in his best advice until Curly crept off to sleep. As for me, I felt good, sitting there in the hut of cactus sticks watching the gold grass slowly change to grey, and great big stars come out above the hills.
The long hair lay like silver around the old man's shoulders; the white beard, pointed short, wagged over his deerskin shirt; his kind eyes wrinkled with fun, and all his words were wisdom absolute. I reckon he's the wisest man in all the southern desert, and when I told him the things I ought not to have done, he showed me better how to act in future.
"Stealin' a womern," says he, "is different from stealin' hawsses. You can make the hawsses forget theyr home range in a month, but a womern will sure break fences to quit back to the man she wants. This Curly will run to her mate, and whar they graze there ain't room for you in the pasture. The good Book says: 'No man shall put them asunder,' and the rules of Right and Wrong ain't got exceptions. Don't you try to steal Curly."
In all my life I never needed a friend so much as I did that night, but when Curly and I hit the trail the old scout reached me his hand.