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"he sand burned through boots, and a touch of bare hand on lava raised a blister. A short while before sundown the Yaqui went forth to build a campfire, and soon the others came out, heat-dazed, half blinded, with parching throats to allay and hunger that was never satisfied. A little action and a cooling of the air revived them, and when night set in they were comfortable round the campfire.
Carter dragged himself away to his room and Jimsy and Yaqui Juan talked long together in the quiet sala. It was a cramped and halting conversation with the Indian's scant English and the American's halting Spanish; sometimes they were unable to understand each other, but they came at last to some sort of agreement, though Juan shook his head mutinously again and again, murmuring "No, no!
"I'm not afraid, Carter, for myself or for Jimsy." She got up and walked to the window; she was aware that she hated the dimness of the sala; she wanted the honest heat of the sun. "Look!" she said, gladly. Carter limped slowly to join her. Jimsy King was swinging toward them through the brazen three o'clock glare, his Yaqui Juan by his side. They were a sightly and eye-filling pair.
Blanco Sol trembled in all his great frame, and then Gale was certain the sound was not imagination. That certainty, once for all, fixed in Gale's mind the mood of his flight. The Yaqui dominated the horses and the rangers. Thorne and Mercedes were as persons under a spell.
At the apex of the notch, where two streams met, a narrow gully wound and ascended. Gale caught sight of the dim, pale shadow of a one-time trail. Near at hand it was invisible; he had to look far ahead to catch the faint tracery. Yaqui led Diablo into it, and then began the most laborious and vexatious and painful of all slow travel.
He wanted to thank the faithful Mercedes, and Thorne for getting well, and the cheerful Lash, and Ladd himself, and that strange and wonderful Yaqui, now such a splendid figure. He thought of home and Nell. The terrible encompassing red slopes lost something of their fearsomeness, and there was a good spirit hovering near. "Boys, come round," called Ladd, in his low voice. "An' you, Mercedes.
But she must have seen or divined what was beyond the others, for she offered him her trembling hand. Yaqui took it and laid it against his body in a strange motion, and bowed his head. Then he stepped back into the shadow of the room. Belding went outdoors while the rangers took up their former position at the west window.
Ladd's muttering grew into a growl, then lapsed into the silence that marked his companions. From time to time the rangers looked inquiringly at Gale. The field glass, however, like the naked sight, could not catch the slightest moving object out there upon the lava. A long hour of slow, mounting suspense wore on. "Shore it's all goin' to be as queer as the Yaqui," said Ladd.
Then, holding to the lasso, he walked up the steep slant, hand over hand on the rope. When he reached the shelf he motioned for Gale to follow. Gale found that method of scaling a wall both quick and easy. Yaqui pulled up the lasso, and threw the stick aloft into another crack. He climbed to another shelf, and Gale followed him.
"The poor old thing is more Indian than Mexican and she doesn't talk very clearly," she said. "She says that the party which came along the road last night was a regiment of cavalry from up north. They saw the barn burning and thought that the bandits were on the march; so they started over that way. They fell in with the stragglers of the Yaqui crowd and started to fight.
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