Those eyes were unmistakably hostile.  They roved searchingly over Shefford’s pack and then over his person.  Shefford felt for the gun that Presbrey had given him.  But it was gone.  He had left it back where he had lost his horse, and had not thought of it since.  Then a strange, slow-coming cold agitation possessed Shefford.  Something gripped his throat.

Suddenly Shefford was stricken at a menacing movement on the part of the horseman.  He had drawn a gun.  Shefford saw it shine darkly in the firelight.  The Indian meant to murder him.  Shefford saw the grim, dark face in a kind of horrible amaze.  He felt the meaning of that drawn weapon as he had never felt anything before in his life.  And he collapsed back into his seat with an icy, sickening terror.  In a second he was dripping wet with cold sweat.  Lightning-swift thoughts flashed through his mind.  It had been one of his platitudes that he was not afraid of death.  Yet here he was a shaking, helpless coward.  What had he learned about either life or death?  Would this dark savage plunge him into the unknown?  It was then that Shefford realized his hollow philosophy and the bitter-sweetness of life.  He had a brain and a soul, and between them he might have worked out his salvation.  But what were they to this ruthless night-wanderer, this raw and horrible wildness of the desert?

Incapable of voluntary movement, with tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth, Shefford watched the horseman and the half-poised gun.  It was not yet leveled.  Then it dawned upon Shefford that the stranger’s head was turned a little, his ear to the wind.  He was listening.  His horse was listening.  Suddenly he straightened up, wheeled his horse, and trotted away into the darkness.  But he did not climb the ridge down which he had come.

Shefford heard the click of hoofs upon the stony trail.  Other horses and riders were descending into the canyon.  They had been the cause of his deliverance, and in the relaxation of feeling he almost fainted.  Then he sat there, slowly recovering, slowly ceasing to tremble, divining that this situation was somehow to change his attitude toward life.

Three horses, two with riders, moved in dark shapes across the skyline above the ridge, disappeared as had Shefford’s first visitor, and then rode into the light.  Shefford saw two Indians—­a man and a woman; then with surprise recognized the latter to be the Indian girl he had met at Red Lake.  He was still more surprised to recognize in the third horse the one he had lost at the last camp.  Shefford rose, a little shaky on his legs, to thank these Indians for a double service.  The man slipped from his saddle and his moccasined feet thudded lightly.  He was tall, lithe, erect, a singularly graceful figure, and as he advanced Shefford saw a dark face and sharp, dark eyes.  The Indian was bareheaded, with his hair bound in a band.  He resembled the girl, but appeared to have a finer face.