“Then why do you not rest—­and wait?”

“Because restin’ and waitin’ is worse than takin” a chanct.  I got to go.”

“You must go?”

Pete nodded.

“But what if I will not find a horse for you?”

“Then I reckon you been foolin’ me right along.”

“That is not so!” Boca’s hand dropped to her side and she turned from him.

“’Course it ain’t!  And say, Boca, I’ll make it through all right.  All I want is a good hoss—­and a canteen and some grub.”

“I have made ready the food and have a canteen for you—­in my room.”

“Then let’s go hunt up that cayuse.”

“It is that you will die—­” she began; but Pete, irritated by argument and the burning wind that droned through the canon, put an end to it all by dropping the saddle and taking her swiftly in his arms.  He kissed her—­rather perfunctorily.  “My little pardner!” he whispered.

Boca, although sixteen and mature in a sense, was in reality little more than a child.  When Pete chose to assert himself, he had much the stronger will.  She felt that all pleading would be useless.  “You have the reata?” she queried, and turning led him past the corral and along the fence until they came to the stream.  A few hundred yards down the stream she turned, and cautioning him to follow closely, entered a sort of lateral canon—­a veritable box at whose farther end was Flores’s cache of horses, kept in this hidden pasture for any immediate need.  Pete heard the quick trampling of hoofs and the snort of startled horses.

“We will drive them on into the corral,” said Boca.

Pete could see but dimly, but he sensed the situation at once.  The canon was a box, narrowing to a natural enclosure with the open end fenced.  He had seen such places—­called “traps” by men who made a business of catching wild horses.

Several dim shapes bunched in the small enclosure, plunging and circling as Pete found and closed the bars.

“The yellow horse is of the desert—­and very strong,” said Boca.

“They all look alike to me,” laughed Pete.  “It’s mighty dark, right now.”  He slipped through the bars and shook out his rope.  The horses crowded away from him as he followed.  A shape reared and backed.  Pete flipped the noose and set his heels as the rope snapped taut.  He held barely enough slack to make the snubbing-post, but finally took a turn round it and fought the horse up.  “Blamed if he ain’t the buckskin,” panted Pete.

The sweat dripped from his face as he bridled and saddled the half-wild animal.  It was doubly hard work in the dark.  Then he came to the corral bars where Boca stood.  “I’m all hooked up, Boca.”

“Then I shall go back for the cantina and the food.”

“I’ll go right along with you.  I’ll wait at the other corral.”

Pete followed her and sat a nervous horse until she reappeared, with the canteen and package of food.  The hot wind purred and whispered round them.  Above, the stars struggled dimly through the haze.  Pete reached down and took her hand.  She had barely touched his fingers when the horse shied and reared.