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 sycamore and live-oak spread in a rambling growth along the little stream, dry in summer, which drained the rainfall from the distant hills. Between these trees there stood a thick growth of smaller trees and shrubs, and beyond them the upgrown lands which once had been the tilled fields of the Guiterrez ranch. Except for large trees, this land had returned to the wilderness of its original state, no particular line being apparent now between the old fields and the virgin country.

Cattle of the neighboring drovers grazed over this territory, which varied between open pasture and tangled brush-growth for miles. Trails known to the vaqueros ran through it all, familiar to Felipe. Gabriel knew that Felipe could lead them in a confusing and entangling race against any who might pursue them, if they had alarm of the searching detail in time.

The landscape lay dark under the stars as Henderson mounted to the fallen coping of the adobe wall to look over it and listen into the shadows of the trees. The measured sawing of insect fiddlers rose and fell in the acacia grove, pulsing, with the beat that nature seemed to set for all night-singing creatures of the woods, with those whose music dimmed away into the distant bosque. One might pass along the wall within a dozen feet of their retreat, never thinking that those sought lay so near. Again, one might creep close and lay his ear to the ground, listening for footsteps, for low voices that might, in the sense of security,