“I’m short on chuck,” said The Spider.  “If you men were deputies—­sworn in regular—­why, I’d have to give it to you.”

Simpson was inclined to argue, but Houck stopped him.

“Guess we can make it all right,” he said easily.  “Come on, boys!”

Houck, wiser than his companions, realized the uselessness of searching farther, a fact obvious even to the hot-headed Simpson when at the edge of the town they tried to buy provisions from a Mexican and were met with a shrug and a reiterated “No sabe.”

“And that just about settles it,” said Houck as he reined his pony round and faced north.

CHAPTER XX

BULL MALVEY

Malvey, when not operating a machine gun for Mexican bandits, was usually busy evading a posse on the American side of the border.  Needless to say, he knew the country well—­and the country knew him only too well.  He had friends—­of a kind—­and he had enemies of every description and color from the swart, black-eyed Cholas of Sonora to the ruddy, blue-eyed Rangers of Texas.  He trusted no man—­and no man who knew him trusted him—­not even The Spider, though he could have sent Malvey to the penitentiary on any one of several counts.

Malvey had no subtlety.  He simply knew the game and possessed a tremendous amount of nerve.  Like most red-headed men, he rode rough-shod and aggressively to his goal.  He “bulled” his way through, when more capable men of equal nerve failed.

Riding beside him across the southern desert, Young Pete could not help noticing Malvey’s hands—­huge-knuckled and freckled—­and Pete surmised correctly that this man was not quick with a gun.  Pete also noticed that Malvey “roughed” his horse unnecessarily; that he was a good rider, but a poor horseman.  Pete wondered that desert life had not taught Malvey to take better care of his horse.

As yet Pete knew nothing of their destination—­nor did he care.  It was good to be out in the open, again with a good horse under him.  The atmosphere of The Spider’s saloon had been too tense for comfort.  Pete simply wanted to vacate Showdown until such time as he might return safely.  He had no plan—­but he did believe that Showdown would know him again.  He could not say why.  And it was significant of Young Pete’s descent to the lower plane that he should consider Showdown safe at any time.

Pete was in reality never more unsafe than at the present time.  While space and a swift pony between his knees argued of bodily freedom, he felt uneasy.  Perhaps because of Malvey’s occasional covert glance at Blue Smoke—­for Pete saw much that he did not appear to see.  Pete became cautious forthwith, studying the lay of the land.  It was a bad country to travel, being so alike in its general aspect of butte and arroyo, sand and cacti, that there was little to lay hold upon as a landmark.  A faint line of hills edged the far southern horizon and there were distant hills to the east and west.  They journeyed across an immense basin, sun-smitten, desolate, unpromising.