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As we backed into the arroyo he said to us, 'If there's a white man there, leave him to me. We were all satisfied that he would be cared for properly at Rusou's hands, and silence gave consent. "Opposite the camp we wormed out of the arroyo like a skirmish line, hugging the ground for the one remaining little knoll between the robbers and ourselves.
Norton lost sight of him as he swept down into the bed of the arroyo, caught sight of him again from the farther side. Already Galloway was appreciably nearer his men, driving his horse mercilessly. "If he comes to his crowd before I can stop him," was Norton's thought, "he'll put his game across on us yet. I've got to head him off and take the chances." Nor were the odds to be overlooked.
In Tijeras Arroyo the moon made black shadows where stood the tiny knolls here and there, marking frequently the windings of dry washes where bushes grew in ragged patches and where tall weeds of mid-May tangled in the wind.
Straining their eyes, they saw a white something moving up an arroyo. "That Blizzahd hoss is smahter than I am," chuckled the Texan. "He knows who his enemies are, and he knows how to keep out of their sight. Watch him climb that dry wash." They held their breath until Blizzard, moving so noiselessly that his hoofs seemed as cushioned as a cougar's, reached the top of the hill.
The youth, as though hypnotized, pulled out his gun and handed it to Waring. Waring knew that if the other Mexican meant to fight it would be at that instant. Even as the butt of the gun touched Waring's hand it jumped. Two shattering reports blended and died echoless in the close-walled arroyo. The Mexican's gun slipped slowly from his fingers.
"I got a hunch," he said hoarsely, "I got a hunch we oughta go back." Pat nodded. But the ponies swept on down the road, their manes and tails whipping in the wind. Another mile and they slowed down in heavy sand. The buckboard tilted forward as they descended the sharp pitch of an arroyo. Unnoticed, Pat's gun slipped to the floor of the wagon.
Or else you see where at night and morning the water comes up through the arroyo bed in pools of silver, receding only during the heat of the day; and moving through the juniper groves, out from the ocher rocks that screen the desert like the wings of a theater, down the panting sand bed of the dead river, trot vast herds of sheep and goats, the young bleat bleating till the air quivers driven by little Navajo girls on horseback, born to the saddle, as the Canadian Cree is born to the canoe.
Dan Anderson, awaiting his fate, did not fly, but sat gravely on the log in front of Uncle Jim's hotel, and waited for the creaking, stage, white with far-gathered dust, to climb the last pitch of the road up from the arroyo and come on with the shambling trot of a pair of tired mules for the final nourish at the end of the long, dry trail.
Now he did not know what to anticipate. His black, level brows drawn straight in defiance, he threw his curses after Johnson's retreating figure. The latter, however, paid no attention. He had his purposes. Once at the top of the arroyo he took a careful survey of the landscape, now rich with dawn.
"Ten times as many, but the trouble is that the honest folks can't trust each other. You see, if one of them made a mistake and confided in the wrong man well, some fine day he would go riding herd and would not turn up at night. Next week, or next month, maybe, one of his partners might find a pile of bones in an arroyo. "Have you ever seen this Bannister?"
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