When Sanderson finally mounted Streak, the sun was up.  It took Streak two hours to descend the slope leading down into the basin, and when once horse and rider were down, Sanderson dismounted and patted Streak’s moist flanks.

“Some drop, eh, Streak?” he said.  “But it didn’t fool us none.  We knowed it was some distance, didn’t we?  An’ they ain’t foolin’ us about the rest of it, are they?  The Drifter said to head toward the Big Peak.  The Double A would be right near there—­in the foothills.  Looks easy, don’t it?  But I reckon we’ll have to hump ourselves to get there by feedin’ time, this noon, eh?”

A little later, Streak having rested, Sanderson mounted and rode forward, toward the peak of a majestic mountain that loomed far above them.

CHAPTER IV

IH WHICH A MAN IS SYMPATHETIC

It was shortly after noon when Sanderson, urging Streak to the crest of an isolated excrescence of earth surrounded by a level of sage and cactus, saw within several hundred yards of him a collection of buildings scattered on a broad plain that extended back several hundred yards farther until it merged into the rock-faced wall of a butte that loomed upward many feet.

Sanderson halted Streak on the hilltop to glance around.  The buildings, evidently, belonged to the Double A ranch, and the country was all the Drifter had claimed for it.

The big stretch of plain—­in fact, the entire basin—­could be made fertile by the judicious use of water.  Sanderson was not an engineer, but he had sufficient natural knowledge of land to enable him to distinguish good land from bad.  Besides, near Phoenix he had inspected a gigantic irrigation project, and had talked long with the engineer in charge, and he had learned many things that would not have interested the average cowpuncher.

There was a break in the wall of the butte south of the group of buildings, and out of the break Sanderson could see water tumbling and splashing from one rock ledge to another until it rushed down, forming quite a large stream as it struck the level and swirled hurriedly between two sloping banks near the buildings.

From where Sanderson sat on Streak he could look far back into the break in the butte.  The break made a sort of gorge, which widened as it receded, and Sanderson suspected the presence of another basin beyond the butte—­in fact, the Drifter had told him of the presence of another basin.

“She’d make some lake, if she was bottled up!” was Sanderson’s mental comment after a long examination.

His gaze became centered upon the buildings and the level surrounding them.

The buildings were ordinary, but the country was rugged and picturesque.

Some foothills—­which Sanderson had seen from the far side of the basin that morning—­rose from the level toward the south, their pine-clad slopes sweeping sharply upward—­a series of gigantic land waves that seemed to leap upward and upward toward the higher peaks of some mountains behind them.