The desert began to lighten.  Gray openings in the border of shrubby growths changed to paler hue.  The road could be seen some rods ahead, and it had become a stony descent down, steadily down.  Dark, ridged backs of mountains bounded the horizon, and all seemed near at hand, hemming in the plain.  In the east a white glow grew brighter and brighter, reaching up to a line of cloud, defined sharply below by a rugged notched range.  Presently a silver circle rose behind the black mountain, and the gloom of the desert underwent a transformation.  From a gray mantle it changed to a transparent haze.  The moon was rising.

“Senor I am cold,” said Mercedes.

Dick had been carrying his coat upon his arm.  He had felt warm, even hot, and had imagined that the steady walk had occasioned it.  But his skin was cool.  The heat came from an inward burning.  He stopped the horse and raised the coat up, and helped Mercedes put it on.

“I should have thought of you,” he said.  “But I seemed to feel warm . . .  The coat’s a little large; we might wrap it round you twice.”

Mercedes smiled and lightly thanked him in Spanish.  The flash of mood was in direct contrast to the appealing, passionate, and tragic states in which he had successively viewed her; and it gave him a vivid impression of what vivacity and charm she might possess under happy conditions.  He was about to start when he observed that Ladd had halted and was peering ahead in evident caution.  Mercedes’ horse began to stamp impatiently, raised his ears and head, and acted as if he was about to neigh.

A warning “hist!” from Ladd bade Dick to put a quieting hand on the horse.  Lash came noiselessly forward to join his companion.  The two then listened and watched.

An uneasy yet thrilling stir ran through Gale’s veins.  This scene was not fancy.  These men of the ranges had heard or seen or scented danger.  It was all real, as tangible and sure as the touch of Mercedes’s hand upon his arm.  Probably for her the night had terrors beyond Gale’s power to comprehend.  He looked down into the desert, and would have felt no surprise at anything hidden away among the bristling cactus, the dark, winding arroyos, the shadowed rocks with their moonlit tips, the ragged plain leading to the black bold mountains.  The wind appeared to blow softly, with an almost imperceptible moan, over the desert.  That was a new sound to Gale.  But he heard nothing more.

Presently Lash went to the rear and Ladd started ahead.  The progress now, however, was considerably slower, not owing to a road—­for that became better—­but probably owing to caution exercised by the cowboy guide.  At the end of a half hour this marked deliberation changed, and the horses followed Ladd’s at a gait that put Gale to his best walking-paces.

Meanwhile the moon soared high above the black corrugated peaks.  The gray, the gloom, the shadow whitened.  The clearing of the dark foreground appeared to lift a distant veil and show endless aisles of desert reaching down between dim horizon-bounding ranges.