“Yes,” said Jack, without looking at Prather.  All the while he had kept watch on the water-hole, and he received Prather’s announcement stoically as a confirmation of his suspicions.

“So, if you will take my advice, brother, the best thing for you to do is to ride back before we reach the water-hole, unless you prefer Leddy’s company.  This time he will fight you in his way.”

“My horse is tired and there is neither water nor feed for him except there.”  Jack stated this quietly and stubbornly, as he nodded toward the cotton-woods.  Then he looked around to Prather.  Suddenly Prather found himself looking at a face that seemed to have only the form of that face by the side of which he had been riding.  It was as if another man had taken Jack’s place in the saddle.  The ancestor was rising in Jack.  Prather saw an electric spark in Jack’s eyes, the spark of the high voltage that made his muscles weave and a flutter come in his cheeks.  “No, I am not going back until I have recovered the rights that you have taken from Little Rivers!” he said.

Prather in sudden confusion realized that he had let his feelings go too soon.  They were not yet at the water-hole, and he was within easy reach of that hand working on the reins in a way that promised an outburst.

“You think of physical violence against me—­your own flesh and blood!” he said defensively.

He saw Jack shudder in reaction and knew that he was safe for the moment.  When Jack looked away at the water-hole Prather’s fingers slipped to his own six-shooter and rested there, twitching nervously; and in the rear Firio was watching both him and Nogales shrewdly.

From any outward sign now, Jack might have been starting on another journey with quiet eagerness; a journey that might end at a precipice a few yards ahead or at the other side of the world.  Of this alone you could be sure from the resoluteness of his features, that he was going straight on; while Firio, in the telepathy of desert companionship, understood that he was missing no developing detail within the narrow range of vision in front of P.D.’s nose.  Trusting all to Jack, Firio was on wires, ready for a spring in any direction.

They were coming to the edge of a depression of an old watercourse that wound around past the cotton-woods to the ridge itself and included the basin where Leddy and his followers had tethered their horses.  But this part of it was dry sand.  The standing figures around the water-hole had sunk down.  Jack could see them as lumps in a row.  A blade of flame from the setting sun fell on them, revealing the glint of rifle barrels.

“Firio!  Quick—­down!  P.D., down!” Jack called, dismounting with a leap; and as though in answer to his warning came the singing of bullets about their ears.