Rad and company had used considerable of the water in that hole. It had shrunk, and there in the margin, baked hard and white like clay, were footprints of men and burros. Billsky picked out Rad’s footprints and patted ’em, he was so pleased. He rested by the water a few hours, and freshened up his burros. Then he went on.
Between the first water-hole and the second the country opens up. It isn’t just a huddle of rocks. It’s mesas rising from a dead level of dust like the worn foundations of towers and cathedrals and cities, banded in rose and violet and gold. You could no more climb most of ’em than you could climb the outside of a skyscraper. But Billsky found one he could climb, and up he went. He’d seen some sort of dry, grassy stuff at the top, and he wanted it for Sarah, one of the burros that was ailing. He found more than the grass on top. He found a grave. Didn’t know whose, of course; nobody knows, nor ever will. He gave the grass to Sarah; but next day she died. Billsky was terrible hurt and grieved, he was always so careful of beasts. He never realized that Sarah was just beat out: couldn’t stand the pace.
At the second water-hole he was only four days behind Rad.
He rested up a bit, being worried over his burro; and took out the lost time in prayer. Then on he went, at that terrible pace, overhauling Rad by the mile, achin’ to forgive him. It’s a long stretch to the third hole. Billsky gained two days on it. I can’t guess how. He told me he took short cuts through the cañons, and that they always turned out all right; and that he sang “Hold the Fort, for I Am Coming,” right along.
He found the third hole fouled and shrunk. In a stretch of mud, Rad had written with a stick, “If you follow me any further, I will shoot you on sight.” How did he know Billsky was so near? Maybe he’d seen his fire the night before. Billsky read the writing, and was dreadful hurt and grieved. “He doesn’t understand,” he said, “that I’m going to forgive him. It’s what I’m follerin’ him for.” He prayed half the night, and went on quicker than ever next day.
Few have ever been so far into the Altanero as the fourth hole. It’s hard to find. Long before Billsky made it, he saw a speck in the sky; it was a great bird, sailing round in little, slow circles. Under it was the fourth water-hole.
It was quite a pool when Billsky came to it. There were bushes round it, and fibrous grass. There were three burros feeding on the bushes, and a small tent pitched. A man came out of the tent, and when he saw Billsky he held up his hands.
“Don’t shoot,” he said, “I’m not Radway. You’ve no quarrel with me.”
“Nor with him,” said Billsky. “I’ve come to forgive him. Where is he?”
“Gone,” said the man, “gone mad, I guess. He’s pushed on alone. Day before yesterday I took sick. We was to rest up here, and then cast round careful, always within reach o’ this water. This morning he went out and climbed them rocks there. Then he came back, and said he must go on, he couldn’t wait. I went to stop him, and he laid me out. See here.” The man was most cryin’; he turned his face, and Billsky saw a great black swelling on his jaw. “He went on,” he said, “as if the devil was after him. And the devil’s you!”