Chapter XIII. Set Afoot - Page 2

about it, boss?" he asked, scarcely raising his voice above the ordinary conversational tone, though a hard fifteen-minutes' climb up and down separated the two; "they never came up the arroyo, if you ask me. My side don't show a hoof track from where we left the boys down below."

"Mine either," Luck replied, by the power of suggestion seating himself and reaching for his own tobacco and papers. "We might as well work back down and connect with Applehead. Wish there was some sign of water in this darn gulch. By the time we get down where we started from, it'll be sundown." He glanced down at Bud and Pink. "Hey! You can start back any, time," he called. "Nothing up this way."

"Here's the grandfather of all rattlers," Miguel called across to Luck, and held up by the tail a great snake that had not ceased its muscular writhings. "Twelve rattles and a button. Have I got time to skin him? He tried to bite me on the leg--but I beard him and got outa reach."

"We've got to be moving," Luck answered. "It's a long ways back where we started from, and we've got to locate water, if we can." He rose with the deliberateness that indicated tired muscles, and started back; and to himself be muttered exasperatedly: "A good three hours all shot to pieces--and not a mile gained on that bunch!"

The Native Son, calmly pinching the rattles of the snake he had not time to skin, climbed down into the Canon and took his horse by the bridle reins. Behind him Andy Green came scrambling; but Luck, still faintly hoping for a clue, kept to the upper rim of the arroyo, scanning every bit of soft ground where it seemed possible for a horse to climb up from below. He had always recognized the native cunning of Ramon, but he had never dreamed him as cunning as this latest ruse would seem to prove him.

As for Bill Holmes, Luck dismissed him with a shrug of contempt. Bill Holmes had been stranded in Albuquerque when the cold weather was coming on; he had been hungry and shelterless and ill-clad--one of those bits of flotsam which drift into our towns and stand dejectedly upon our street-corners when they do not prowl down alleys to the back doors of our restaurants in the hope of being permitted to wash the soiled dishes of more fortunate men for the food which diners have left beside their plates. Luck had fed Bill Holmes, and he had given him work to do and the best food and shelter he could afford; and for thanks, Bill had- as Luck believed-made sly, dishonest love to Annie-Many-Ponies, for whose physical and moral welfare Luck would be held responsible. Bill had deliberately chosen to steal rather than work for honest wages, and had preferred the unstable friendship of Ramon Chavez to the cleaner life in Luck's company. He did not credit Bill Holmes with anything stronger than a weak-souled treachery. Ramon, he told