That day he rode hard.  There were few towns on his way.  He reined in when he came to the fork where the southern highway branches from the Overland Road.  The western road led on across the mountains past the great canon.  The other swept south through cattle land and into the rough hills beyond which lay Phoenix and the old Apache Trail.  He hailed a buck-board coming down the southern road.  The driver had seen nothing of a buckskin horse.  Ramon hesitated, closing his eyes.  Suddenly in the darkness glared a golden sun, and against it the tiny, black silhouette of a horseman.  His dream could not lie.

Day by day the oval of his face grew narrower, until his cheek-bones showed prominently.  His lips lost their youthful fullness.  Only his eyes were the same; great, velvet-soft black eyes, gently questioning, veiled by no subtlety, and brighter for the deepening black circles beneath them.

The fifth day found him patiently riding west, despite the fact that all trace of Waring had been lost.  Questioned, men shook their heads and watched him ride away, his lithe figure upright, but his head bowed as though some blind fate drew him on while his spirit drowsed in stagnant hopelessness.

To all his inquiries that day he received the same answer.  Finally, in the high country, he turned and retraced his way.

A week after he had left Stacey he was again at the fork of the highway.  The southern road ran, winding, toward a shallow valley.  He took this road, peering ahead for a ranch, or habitation of any kind.  That afternoon he stopped at a wayside store and bought crackers and canned meat.  He questioned the storekeeper.  Yes, the storekeeper had seen such a man pass on a big buckskin cayuse several days ago.  Ramon thanked him and rode on.  He camped just off the road that evening.  In the morning he set out again, cheered by a new hope.  His dream had not lied; only there should have been another dream to show him the way before he had come to the fork in the road.

That afternoon three men passed him, riding hard.  They were in their shirt-sleeves and were heavily armed.  Their evident haste caused Ramon to note their passing with some interest.  Yet they had thundered past him so fast, and in such a cloud of dust, that he could not see them clearly.

* * * * *

Waring, gaunt as a wolf, unshaven, his hat rimmed with white dust, pulled up in front of the weathered saloon in the town of Criswell on the edge of the desert.

He dismounted and stepped round the hitching-rail.  His face was lined and gray.  His eyes were red-rimmed and heavy.  As he strode toward the saloon door, he staggered and caught himself.  Dex shuffled uneasily, knowing that something was wrong with his master.