He stripped off the bridle from Pinto’s head, and again gave him a friendly slap, as he drove him off to graze, without any precaution to prevent his running away.  As for himself, Curly lay down upon the ground, his face on his arm, and was soon fast asleep in the glaring sun.  Pinto, misanthropic as he was, did not abuse the confidence reposed in him.  He walked off to a trickle of water which came down from a mountain spring, and grazed steadily upon the coarse mountain grass, but every now and then, under the strange bond which sometimes exists between horse and man, wandered around to look inquiringly at his sleeping master, whom he would gladly have brained upon occasion, but upon whom, none the less, he relied blindly.

There were long shadows slanting toward the eastward when Curly arose and again saddled up his misfit mount.  He knew that the buckboard was well in advance of him in time, but it must take the longer wagon trail to the westward of Sky Top, while for himself there were shorter paths across the mountains.  He rode on until night fell, and the moon arose, flooding all the mountain range with wondrous silvery light, which grew the plainer as he left the whispering pines and came into the dwindled pinons of the lower levels.  Then up and down, over and over, he crossed the edges of other spurs, coming down from the great backbone of the range.  It was past midnight when he reached the flat-topped mesa near the Nogales divide, where there were no trees at all, and where ancient pottery, relics of a forgotten Heart’s Desire of another race and time, crumbled beneath his horse’s hoofs.  Here Curly loosened the saddle cinches, flung down the bridle-rein over Pinto’s head again, and himself lay down to sleep, uncovered, but hardy as any mountain bear that roamed the hills.

When he awoke the red sun hung poised on the shoulder of Blanco, far away, as though to receive the ghostly worship of those who once lived and loved, and prayed here, in the long ago.  So now he ate as he might, and drank at the Rio Bonito, a dozen miles farther on, and went his way comforted.

Dropping down rapidly on the farther side of the Nogales, Pinto shambling along discontentedly but steadily, Curly at length came to the wagon trail which led along the edge of the plain on the western side of these ranges which he had threaded.  He leaned forward and examined the trail for wheel marks.

“By Jinks!  Pinto,” he muttered, “the old man and the girl is shore hittin’ the trail hard for that there death-bed.  I’ll bet that pore girl’s tired, for they must have made a short camp last night. Vamos, caballo!” and so he spurred on to the northward along the hot low flats.

By noon he sighted a dust cloud on ahead, which told him that he had the other party well in hand if he liked, in spite of the speed they were making.

“They travelled all night, that’s what they did!  If that Mexican don’t kill his team, it’s a lucky thing.”  He did not seek to close the gap between them, but on the other hand pulled up and rode more slowly.