“Just plain hell,” said Malvey as though reading Pete’s thought.

“You act like you was to home all right,” laughed Pete.

Malvey glanced quickly at his companion, alive to an implied insult, but he saw only a young, smooth-cheeked rider in whose dark eyes shone neither animosity nor friendliness.  They jogged on, neither speaking for many miles.  When Malvey did speak, his manner was the least bit patronizing.  He could not quite understand Pete, yet The Spider had seemed to understand him.  As Pete had said nothing about the trouble that had driven him to the desert, Malvey considered silence on that subject emanated from a lack of trust.  He wanted to gain Pete’s confidence—­for the time being at least.  It would make it that much easier to follow The Spider’s instructions in regard to Pete’s horse.  But to all Malvey’s hints Pete was either silent or jestingly unresponsive.  As the journey thinned the possibilities of Pete’s capture, it became monotonous, even to Malvey, who set about planning how he could steal Pete’s horse with the least risk to himself.  Aside from The Spider’s instructions Malvey coveted the pony—­a far better horse than his own—­and he was of two minds as to whether he should not keep the pony for his own use.  The Concho was a long cry from Showdown—­while the horse Malvey rode had been stolen from a more immediate neighborhood.  As for setting this young stranger afoot in the desert, that did not bother Malvey in the least.  No posse would ride farther south than Showdown, and with Pete afoot at Flores’s rancho, Malvey would be free to follow his own will, either to Blake’s ranch or farther south and across the border.  Whether Pete returned to Showdown or not was none of Malvey’s affair.  To get away with the horse might require some scheming.  Malvey made no further attempt to draw Pete out—­but rode on in silence.

They came upon the canon suddenly, so suddenly that Pete’s horse shied and circled.  Malvey, leading, put his own pony down a steep and winding trail.  Pete followed, fixing his eyes on a far green spot at the bottom of the canon, and the thin thread of smoke above the trees that told of a habitation.

At a bend in the trail, Malvey turned in the saddle:  “We’ll bush down here.  Friends of mine.”

Pete nodded.

They watered their horses at the thin trickle of water in the canon-bed and then rode slowly past a weirdly fenced field.  Presently they came to a rude adobe stable and scrub-cedar corral.  A few yards beyond, and hidden by the bushes, was the house.  A pock-marked Mexican greeted Malvey gruffly.  The Spider’s name was mentioned, and Pete was introduced as his friend.  The horses were corralled and fed.