“Why do you tell me all this?”

The old man moistened his lips before speaking.  “If A don’t go out, Wayland, A want y’ t’ see that her father’s told, that she’s taken back.  When A saw the love light in her face come out like stars and her breath break when A spoke of you as a Ranger fellow, when A saw that, A thought, no matter what A thought.  If y’ married her, d’ y’ think y’ could go off on the firing line; d’ y’ think y’ would if y’ knew y’d left her in danger?  They’d strike at you through her, Wayland . . . it would be the end of free fightin’.  A ask no promise.  ’Tis enough A’ve told y’.  Drive on!”

They moved slowly up the sand ridge, the Ranger a little ahead, oblivious of the livid blue of the old man’s lips and the drag on the bridle rope till a quick jerk ripped the line from his loose hold; and he glanced back to see the other’s horse stagger, flounder up again, waver and sink with a sucking groan.  Wayland sprang just in time to catch the old frontiersman.  He tore the saddle from the fallen broncho and cinched it on his own horse.  Then he lifted Matthews, protesting, to the fresh mount, “till we reach the next rest place,” he said, tying the halter rope of the pack mule to the saddle pommel.  “Go on, I’ll come.”

Wayland waited till the horse and mule passed over the crest of the sand bank; then, he took out his revolver.  A shudder ran through the fallen horse.  The Ranger’s hand trembled.  He stroked its neck.  “Poor devil; it’s none of your affair either.  I wonder how the God of the game will square it with the dumb brutes?”

He ran his left hand down the white face of the broncho.  It hobbled as if to stagger up, and sank back dumb, faithful, trying to the end, one fore knee bent to rise, the neck outstretched.  Wayland’s right hand went swiftly close between eye and ear.  He shot, in quick succession, three times, his hand fumbling, his sight turned aside.

Neither spoke as they advanced down the other side of the sand ridge, the Ranger steadying himself with a hand to the mule’s neck.  The bank dipped to a white alkali pit where the light lay in dead pools, gray in the twilight, quivering with heat, layers of blue air above ashes of death.  For the second time that day, the sand colored thing skulked across the trail.  Wayland took hold of both bridles and led down, the old man wakening as from a stupor.  The alkali pit lay perhaps a mile distant, gray and fading in the red light.

“Wayland, is that water?”

“Where?  I can’t see it.”

“There, at the foot of the hill.”

“With trees up side down?  No, sir!  It may be mirage of water miles away, carried by the rays of this twilight; but if you can see it and the horses can’t smell it, you can bet on a false pool!”

But the little mule had jerked free with a low squeal.

“A tell you, Wayland, there is water;” and he began babbling again inconsequently of the sea, running his words together incoherent, half delirious.