Presently Stewart’s horse went splashing into a shallow pool.  Beyond that damp places in the sand showed here and there, and again more water in rocky pockets.  Stewart kept on.  It was eight o’clock by Madeline’s watch when, upon turning into a wide hollow, she saw horses grazing on spare grass, a great pile of canvas-covered bundles, and a fire round which cowboys and two Mexican women were busy.

Madeline sat her horse and reviewed her followers as they rode up single file.  Her guests were in merry mood, and they all talked at once.

“Breakfast—­and rustle,” called out Stewart, without ceremony.

“No need to tell me to rustle,” said Helen.  “I am simply ravenous.  This air makes me hungry.”

For that matter, Madeline observed Helen did not show any marked contrast to the others.  The hurry order, however, did not interfere with the meal being somewhat in the nature of a picnic.  While they ate and talked and laughed the cowboys were packing horses and burros and throwing the diamond-hitch, a procedure so interesting to Castleton that he got up with coffee-cup in hand and tramped from one place to another.

“Heard of that diamond-hitch-up,” he observed to a cowboy.  “Bally nice little job!”

As soon as the pack-train was in readiness Stewart started it off in the lead to break trail.  A heavy growth of shrub interspersed with rock and cactus covered the slopes; and now all the trail appeared to be uphill.  It was not a question of comfort for Madeline and her party, for comfort was impossible; it was a matter of making the travel possible for him.  Florence wore corduroy breeches and high-top boots, and the advantage of this masculine garb was at once in evidence.  The riding-habits of the other ladies suffered considerably from the sharp spikes.  It took all Madeline’s watchfulness to save her horse’s legs, to pick the best bits of open ground, to make cut-offs from the trail, and to protect herself from outreaching thorny branches, so that the time sped by without her knowing it.  The pack-train forged ahead, and the trailing couples grew farther apart.  At noon they got out of the foothills to face the real ascent of the mountains.  The sun beat down hot.  There was little breeze, and the dust rose thick and hung in a pall.  The view was restricted, and what scenery lay open to the eye was dreary and drab, a barren monotony of slow-mounting slopes ridged by rocky canyons.

Once Stewart waited for Madeline, and as she came up he said: 

“We’re going to have a storm.”

“That will be a relief.  It’s so hot and dusty,” replied Madeline.

“Shall I call a halt and make camp?”

“Here?  Oh no!  What do you think best?”

“Well, if we have a good healthy thunder-storm it will be something new for your friends.  I think we’d be wise to keep on the go.  There’s no place to make a good camp.  The wind would blow us off this slope if the rain didn’t wash us off.  It’ll take all-day travel to reach a good camp-site, and I don’t promise that.  We’re making slow time.  If it rains, let it rain.  The pack outfit is well covered.  We will have to get wet.”