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Presently Stevens rode out of sight into the town. Duane waited, hoping the outlaw would make good his word. Probably not a quarter of an hour had elapsed when Duane heard the clear reports of a Winchester rifle, the clatter of rapid hoof-beats, and yells unmistakably the kind to mean danger for a man like Stevens. Duane mounted and rode to the edge of the mesquites.
No, by God, I've changed my mind, friend Federal: think I'll kill you on the spot, because you are pulling too hard. Look, all the mesquites are still a long way off and there are no telegraph poles to hang you to!"
He quickly loaded one of his .45s and stuck it down in one of Blizzard's stirrups in such a way that it could not jolt out. Then he gave the horse a sharp pat on the neck. "Go, Blizzahd," he urged, "until I call!" The horse seemed to understand perfectly, for it wheeled and ran with all its speed down the arroyo. It was soon lost to sight among the mesquites.
It was this hound which always did most in finding the javalinas and bringing them to bay, his companion's chief use being to make a noise and lend the moral support of his presence. We rode away from the river on the dry uplands, where the timber, though thick, was small, consisting almost exclusively of the thorny mesquites.
One evening, but shrewdly in time for supper, a couple of Mexicans on horses, thridding their way through the mesquites, came into the ranch, quickly followed by others, one or two on burros, more on ponies, most on the skeleton of a prairieschooner drawn by four horses, and the shearers had arrived.
After running a couple of hundred yards he raised himself from over the pommel, where he had bent to avoid the stinging branches, and tried to guide his horse. In the dark shadows under mesquites and cottonwoods he was hard put to it to find open passage; however, he succeeded so well and made such little noise that gradually he drew away from his pursuers.
But farther down this stream bed spread out. There was every indication that at flood seasons the water covered the floor of the arroyo. The farther Gale went the thicker and larger grew the gnarled mesquites and palo verdes, the more cactus and greasewood there were, and other desert growths. Patches of gray grass grew everywhere. Gale began to wonder where the horses were.
Voices, however, warned him that these riders, whoever they were, had approached closer than he liked. To go farther down the road was not to be thought of, so he turned a little way in among the mesquites and halted, hoping to escape being seen or heard. As he was now a fugitive, it seemed every man was his enemy and pursuer. The horsemen were fast approaching.
Then up a gravelly hill, matted with bush, the hoarse scrambled, and at length emerged, with a snort of satisfaction into a stretch of high, level prairie, grassy and dotted with the lighter green of mesquites in their fresh spring foliage.
Up another slight ascent and we come in sight of the Canyon. We have left the tall trees and the thick grass, and now have only mesquites, cedars, yucca and cactus. But we have a good trail. On Point Sublime. "At last we are on the Point itself. So ardently desired, and with only an hour of daylight left, we begin to study the wonderful panorama. I am photographed rounding up the burros.
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