Gale meant it.  He would not eat till he had watered his horse.  Sol had gone nearly forty-eight hours without a sufficient drink, and that was long enough, even for a desert-bred beast.  No three raiders could keep Gale away from that well.  Taking his rifle in hand, he faced up the arroyo.  Rabbits were frisking in the short willows, and some were so tame he could have kicked them.  Gale walked swiftly for a goodly part of the distance, and then, when he saw blue smoke curling up above the trees, he proceeded slowly, with alert eye and ear.  From the lay of the land and position of trees seen by daylight, he found an easier and safer course that the one he had taken in the dark.  And by careful work he was enabled to get closer to the well, and somewhat above it.

The Mexicans were leisurely cooking their morning meal.  They had two fires, one for warmth, the other to cook over.  Gale had an idea these raiders were familiar to him.  It seemed all these border hawks resembled one another—­being mostly small of build, wiry, angular, swarthy-faced, and black-haired, and they wore the oddly styled Mexican clothes and sombreros.  A slow wrath stirred in Gale as he watched the trio.  They showed not the slightest indication of breaking camp.  One fellow, evidently the leader, packed a gun at his hip, the only weapon in sight.  Gale noted this with speculative eyes.  The raiders had slept inside the little adobe house, and had not yet brought out the carbines.  Next Gale swept his gaze to the corral, in which he saw more than a dozen horses, some of them fine animals.  They were stamping and whistling, fighting one another, and pawing the dirt.  This was entirely natural behavior for desert horses penned in when they wanted to get at water and grass.

But suddenly one of the blacks, a big, shaggy fellow, shot up his ears and pointed his nose over the top of the fence.  He whistled.  Other horses looked in the same direction, and their ears went up, and they, too, whistled.  Gale knew that other horses or men, very likely both, were approaching.  But the Mexicans did not hear the alarm, or show any interest if they did.  These mescal-drinking raiders were not scouts.  It was notorious how easily they could be surprised or ambushed.  Mostly they were ignorant, thick-skulled peons.  They were wonderful horsemen, and could go long without food or water; but they had not other accomplishments or attributes calculated to help them in desert warfare.  They had poor sight, poor hearing, poor judgment, and when excited they resembled crazed ants running wild.

Gale saw two Indians on burros come riding up the other side of the knoll upon which the adobe house stood; and apparently they were not aware of the presence of the Mexicans, for they came on up the path.  One Indian was a Papago.  The other, striking in appearance for other reasons than that he seemed to be about to fall from the burro, Gale took to be a Yaqui.  These travelers had absolutely nothing for an outfit except a blanket and a half-empty bag.  They came over the knoll and down the path toward the well, turned a corner of the house, and completely surprised the raiders.