Page:Mulford--The Bar-20 three.djvu/281

Rh although added miles of twisting detours was the price,  and keeping so far from his quarry that he barely could pick out the small, dark mass with the aid of the glass, he feared no discovery. So he rode hour after weary hour under the pitiless sun, stopping only once to turn his sombrero into a bucket, from which his horse eagerly drank the contents of one huge canteen, its two gallons of water filling the hat several times.

"Got to go easy with it for awhile, bronch," he told it. "Water can't be so terrible far ahead, judgin' from that herd pushin' boldlike across this strip of h—l—but cows can go a long time without it when they has to; an' out here they shore has to. I'm not cheatin' you—there's four for you an' one for me, an' we won't change it."

Mile upon burning mile passed in endless procession as they plodded through hard sand, soft sand, powdery dust, and over stretches of rocky floor blasted smooth and slippery by the cutting sands driven against it by every wind for centuries. An occasional polished bowlder loomed up, its coat of "desert-varnish" glistening brown under the pale, molten sun. He knew what the varnish was, how it had been drawn from the rock and the mineral contents left behind on the surface as its moisture evaporated into the air. An occasional "side-winder," diminutive when compared to the rattlesnakes of other localities, slid curiously across the sand, its beady, glittering eyes cold and vicious as it watched this strange invader of its desert fastness.

Warned at last by the fading light after what had seemed an eternity of glare, he gave the dejected horse another canteen of water and then urged it into brisker