Will Corliss, riding through the timberlands toward the west, shivered as a drop of rain touched his hand.  He glanced up through the trees.  The sky seemed clouded to the level of the pine-tops.  He spurred his horse as he again felt a spatter of rain.  Before him lay several miles of rugged trail leading to an open stretch across which he would again enter the timber on the edge of the hollow where Soper’s cabin was concealed.  When Corliss had suggested Soper’s place as a rendezvous, Fadeaway had laughed to himself, knowing that old man Soper had been driven from the country by a committee of irate ranchers.  The illicit sale of whiskey to the cowboys of the Concho Valley had been the cause of Soper’s hurried evacuation.  The cabin had been burned to the ground.  Fadeaway knew that without Soper’s assistance Corliss would be unable to get to the railroad—­would be obliged either to return to the Concho or starve on the empty mesas.

Corliss bent his head as the rain drove faster.  When he arrived at the edge of the mesa, the storm had increased to a steady dull roar of rushing rain.  He hesitated to face the open and reined up beneath a spruce.  He was drenched and shivered.  The fever of drink had died out leaving him unstrung and strangely fearful of the night.  His horse stood with lowered head, its storm-blown mane whipping in the wind like a wet cloth.  A branch riven from a giant pine crashed down behind him.  Corliss jerked upright in the saddle, and the horse, obeying the accidental touch of the spurs, plodded out to the mesa with head held sideways.

The rider’s hands grew numb and he dropped the reins over the horn and shoved his hands in his pockets.  Unaccustomed to riding he grew weary and, despite the storm, he drowsed, to awaken with a start as gusts of wind swept against his face.  He raised his dripping hat and shook the water from it.  Then he crouched shivering in the saddle.  He cursed himself for a fool and longed for shelter and the warmth of a fire.  Slowly a feeling of helplessness stole over him and he pictured himself returning to the Concho and asking forgiveness of his brother.  Yet he kept stubbornly on, glancing ahead from time to time until at last he saw the dim edge of the distant timber—­a black line against the darkness.  He urged his horse to a trot, and was all but thrown as the animal suddenly avoided a prairie-dog hole.  The sweep of the storm was broken as he entered the farther timber.  Then came the muffled roll of thunder and an instant white flash.  The horse reared as a bolt struck a pine.  Came the ghastly whistle of flying splinters as the tree was shattered.  Corliss grabbed the saddle-horn as the horse bolted through the timberlands, working against the curb to reach the open.  Once more on the trail the animal quieted.  They topped a gentle rise.  Corliss breathed his relief.  Soper’s cabin was in the hollow below them.