Slone had forgotten himself and possible revelation concerning him.  But when Holley appeared close to him with a significant warning look, Slone grew keen once more on his own account.  He felt a hot flame inside him—­a deep and burning anger at the man who might have saved Creech’s horses.  And he, like Brackton, felt sorrow for Creech, and a rider’s sense of loss, of pain.  These horses—­these dumb brutes—­faithful and sometimes devoted, had to suffer an agonizing death because of the selfishness of men.

“I reckon we’d all like to hear what come off, Creech, if you don’t feel too bad to tell us,” said Brackton.

“Gimme a drink,” replied Creech.

“Wal, d—­n my old head!” exclaimed Brackton.  “I’m gittin’ old.  Come on in.  All of you!  We’re glad to see Creech home.”

The riders filed in after Brackton and the Creeches.  Holley stayed close beside Slone, both of them in the background.

“I heerd the flood comin’ thet night,” said Creech to his silent and tense-faced listeners.  “I heerd it miles up the canyon.  ’Peared a bigger roar than any flood before.  As it happened, I was alone, an’ it took time to git the hosses up.  If there’d been an Indian with me—­or even Joel—­mebbe—­” His voice quavered slightly, broke, and then he resumed.  “Even when I got the hosses over to the landin’ it wasn’t too late—­if only some one had heerd me an’ come down.  I yelled an’ shot.  Nobody heerd.  The river was risin’ fast.  An’ thet roar had begun to make my hair raise.  It seemed like years the time I waited there. . . .  Then the flood came down—­black an’ windy an’ awful.  I had hell gittin’ the hosses back.

“Next mornin’ two Piutes come down.  They had lost mustangs up on the rocks.  All the feed on my place was gone.  There wasn’t nothin’ to do but try to git out.  The Piutes said there wasn’t no chance north—­no water—­no grass—­an’ so I decided to go south, if we could climb over thet last slide.  Peg broke her leg there, an’—­I—­I had to shoot her.  But we climbed out with the rest of the bunch.  I left it then to the Piutes.  We traveled five days west to head the canyons.  No grass an’ only a little water, salt at thet.  Blue Roan was game if ever I seen a game hoss.  Then the Piutes took to workin’ in an’ out an’ around, not to git out, but to find a little grazin’.  I never knowed the earth was so barren.  One by one them hosses went down. . . .  An’ at last, I couldn’t—­I couldn’t see Blue Roan starvin’—­dyin’ right before my eyes—­an’ I shot him, too. . . .  An’ what hurts me most now is thet I didn’t have the nerve to kill him fust off.”

There was a long pause in Creech’s narrative.

“Them Piutes will git paid if ever I can pay them.  I’d parched myself but for them. . . .  We circled an’ crossed them red cliffs an’ then the strip of red sand, an’ worked down into the canyon.  Under the wall was a long stretch of beach—­sandy—­an’ at the head of this we found Bostil’s boat.”