A great wolf, or a dog as tall and rough coated as a wolf, trotted around the hillside.  He paused with one foot lifted and lolling, crimson tongue, as he scanned the distance and then turned to look back in the direction from which he had come.  The weird music changed to whistled notes as liquid as a flute.  The sound drew closer.  A horseman rode out on the shoulder and checked his mount.  One could not choose him at first glance as a type of those who fight nature in a region where the thermometer moves through a scale of a hundred and sixty degrees in the year to an accompaniment of cold-stabbing winds and sweltering suns.  A thin, handsome face with large brown eyes and black hair, a body tall but rather slenderly made—­he might have been a descendant of some ancient family of Norman nobility; but could such proud gentry be found riding the desert in a tall-crowned sombrero with chaps on his legs and a red bandana handkerchief knotted around his throat?  That first glance made the rider seem strangely out of place in such surroundings.  One might even smile at the contrast, but at the second glance the smile would fade, and at the third, it would be replaced with a stare of interest.  It was impossible to tell why one respected this man, but after a time there grew a suspicion of unknown strength in this lone rider, strength like that of a machine which is stopped but only needs a spark of fire to plunge it into irresistible action.  Strangely enough, the youthful figure seemed in tune with that region of mighty distances, with that white, cruel sun, with that bird of prey hovering high, high in the air.

It required some study to guess at these qualities of the rider, for they were such things as a child feels more readily than a grown man; but it needed no expert to admire the horse he bestrode.  It was a statue in black marble, a steed fit for a Shah of Persia!  The stallion stood barely fifteen hands, but to see him was to forget his size.  His flanks shimmered like satin in the sun.  What promise of power in the smooth, broad hips!  Only an Arab poet could run his hand over that shoulder and then speak properly of the matchless curve.  Only an Arab could appreciate legs like thin and carefully drawn steel below the knees; or that flow of tail and windy mane; that generous breast with promise of the mighty heart within; that arched neck; that proud head with the pricking ears, wide forehead, and muzzle, as the Sheik said, which might drink from a pint-pot.

A rustling like dried leaves came from among the rocks and the hair rose bristling around the neck of the wolflike dog.  With outstretched head he approached the rocks, sniffing, then stopped and turned shining eyes upon his master, who nodded and swung from the saddle.  It was a little uncanny, this silent interchange of glances between the beast and the man.  The cause of the dog’s anxiety was a long rattler which now slid out from beneath a boulder, and giving its harsh warning, coiled, ready to strike.  The dog backed away, but instead of growling he looked to the man.