"There's the blanket," called Burke, tossing a roll in front of Matt. "Adios, my lad, and always remember that Burke, of Prescott, is your friend. Spurs and quirts, boys!"
Away dashed the posse, Burke in the lead. They vanished in the direction of the Gap, although their road to Painted Rocks and Tinaja Wells was not to take them over the divide.
Matt was tired, and the prospect of a rest appealed to him mightily. With a cloth taken from his toolkit, he proceeded to dust off the Comet, and to look it over and make sure it had suffered no damage. He attended to this before he looked after his own comfort.
After finishing with the machine, he spread out the sheriff's blanket under some bushes near the spring, and ate a supper of jerked beef and crackers and drank the bottle of coffee.
A feeling of relief and satisfaction ran through him. He had finished his "century" run and had delivered the governor's message to Burke on time. Now, if only Clip had been with him, his enjoyment would have been complete.
He fell to wondering what Clip was about, and how he had expected to help with his smoke-signals. It would have been easy for Clip, aided by the half-breed, to send signals along the line carrying information that the trouble was over with. But Clip had not been able to do that, or the encounter would not have occurred on the divide.
While Matt's mind circled about his chum, darkness fell suddenly, as it always does in Arizona, and coyotes began to yelp shrilly among the hills. Feeling perfectly secure, Matt lay back, pulled the side of the blanket over him, and fell asleep.
He must have slept several hours, when he was aroused by a rustling in the bushes near him, and a sound as of some animal sniffing about his camp. Reaching for the bottle that had contained the coffee, he threw it into the brush. There followed a yelp, and the animal—coyote or wolf—could be heard scurrying away.
Getting up, Matt walked down to the spring and took a drink. As he lifted himself erect, far off across the hills toward the north and west he saw a fiery line rise in the air and burst into a dozen flaming balls. Perhaps a minute later the rocket was answered by another, off to the south.
"There's a whole lot going on in these hills to-night," thought Matt, returning to his blanket. "By this time, I guess, Burke and his men must have reached Tinaja Wells and done their work there. The smuggling of Chinks across the Mexican border is getting a black eye in this part of the country, all right."