"An' if they jump us up, how're they goin' to know how much we've seen?

There's one safe way, an' they would ce'tainly take it."

"Dead men tell no tales, it's said."

"Some of 'em do an' some don't. I never met up with a proverb yet that wasn't 'way off about half the time. For instance, that one you quoted.

Rutherford Wadley's body told me considerable. It said that he'd been killed on the bluff above an' flung down; that he'd been shot by a rifle in the hands of a man standin' about a hundred an' fifty yards away; that he'd been taken by surprise an' probably robbed."

"It wouldn't have told me all that."

"Not till you learn to read sign closer than you do. An outdoor education is like a school-book one. You can't learn it in a day or a week or a year."

"You're no Methuselah. There's still hope for me."

"Lots o' hope. It's mostly keepin' yore eyes open an' yore brain workin'. I'm still only in the A B C cla.s.s, but a fellow learns somethin' every day if he's that kind."

"If it's a matter of brains, why do Indians make the best trailers? You wouldn't say their brains are as good as a white man's, would you?"

"No; an' I'd say there's nothin' on earth an Indian can do as well as a white man, given the same chance to learn it. Indians know the outdoors because they have to know it to live. The desert's no prodigal mother.

Her sons have to rustle right smart to keep their tummies satisfied. If the 'Paches and the Kiowas didn't know how to cut sign an' read it, how to hunt an' fish an' follow a trail, they'd all be in their happy huntin' grounds long ago. They're what old Nature has made 'em. But I'll tell you this. When a white man gives his mind to it he understands the life of the plains better than any Indian does. His brains are better, an' he goes back an' looks for causes. The best trailers in the world are whites, not redskins."

"I didn't know that," Arthur said.

"Ask any old-timer if it ain't so."

They were eating breakfast when the light on the horizon announced a new day on the way. Already this light was saturating the atmosphere and dissolving shadows. The vegetation of the plains, the wave rolls of the land, the distant horizon line, became more distinct. By the time the sun pushed into sight the Rangers were in the saddle.

Roberts led through the polecat brush to the summit of a little mesa which overlooked the gulch. Along the edge of the ravine he rode, preferring the bluff to the sandy wash below because the ground was less likely to tell the Dinsmores a story of two travelers riding up Box Canon. At the head of the gorge a faint trail dipped to the left.

Painted on a rock was a sign that Jack had seen before.

THIS IS PETE DINSMORE'S ROAD-- TAKE ANOTHER.

He grinned reminiscently. "I did last time. I took the back trail under orders."

"Whose orders?" asked Ridley.

"Pete's, I reckon."

"If there's a story goes with that grin--" suggested Arthur.

"No story a-tall. I caught a fellow brandin' a calf below the canon. He waved me around. Some curious to see who the guy was that didn't want to say 'How?' to me, I followed him into Box."

That seemed to be the end of the yarn. At any rate, Jack stopped.

"Well, did you find out who he was?"

"No, but I found this sign, an' above it a rifle slantin' down at me, an' back of the rifle a masked face. The fellow that owned the face advised me about my health."

"What about it?"

"Why, that this rough country wasn't suited to my disposition, temperament, an' general proclivities. So I p'inted back to where I had come from."

"And you never satisfied your curiosity about who the rustler was?"

"Didn't I?" drawled Jack.

"Did you?"

"Mebbe I did. I'm not tellin' that yarn--not to-day."

The country was rougher and hillier. The trail they had been following died away in the hills, but they crossed and recrossed others, made by buffaloes, antelopes, and coyotes driven by the spur of their needs in the years that had pa.s.sed. Countless generations of desert life had come and gone before even the Indians drifted in to live on the buffalo.

"Why is it that there's more warfare on the desert than there is back East? The cactus has spines. The rattlesnake, the centipede, the Gila monster, the tarantula, all carry poison. Even the toad has a horn.

Everywhere it is a fight to survive. The vegetation, as well as the animal life, fights all the time against drought. It's a regular h.e.l.l on earth," Arthur concluded.

Jack eased himself in the saddle. "Looks kinda like Nature made the desert an' grinned at life, much as to say, 'I defy you to live there,'

don't it? Sure there's warfare, but I reckon there's always war between different forms of life. If there wasn't, the world would be rank with all sorts of things crowdin' each other. The war would have to come then after all. Me, I like it. I like the way life came back with an answer to the challenge. It equipped itself with spines an' stings an' horns an' tough hides because it had to have 'em. It developed pores an'

stomachs that could get along without much water. Who wants to live in a land where you don't have to rustle for a livin'?"

"You belong to the West. You're of it," Ridley said. "If you'd seen the fine gra.s.slands of the East, the beautiful, well-kept farms and the fat stock, you'd understand what I mean. A fellow gets homesick for them."

Roberts nodded. "I've seen 'em an' I understand. Oncet I went back East an' spent three months there. I couldn't stand it. I got sick for the whinin' of a rope, wanted to hump over the hills after cows' tails. The nice little farms an' the nice little people with their nice little ways kinda cramped me. I reckon in this ol' world it's every one to his own taste." His eye swept the landscape. "Looks like there's water down there. If so, we'll fall off for a spell an' rest the hawsses."

[Footnote 7: A man is said to be "dry-gulched" when he mysteriously disappears,--killed by his enemies and buried under a pile of rocks.]

CHAPTER XXIX

BURNT BRANDS

At the end of the third day of scouting Jack came back to camp late, but jubilant.

"I've found what we're lookin' for, Art. I drifted across a ridge an'

looked down into a draw this evenin'. A fellow was ridin' herd on a bunch of cows. They looked to me like a jackpot lot, but I couldn't be sure at that distance. I'm gonna find out what brands they carry."

"How?"

"The only way I know is to get close enough to see."

"Can you do that without being noticed?"

"Mebbe I can. The fellow watchin' the herd ain't expectin' visitors.

Probably he loafs on the job some of the time. I'm gamblin' he does."

Roberts unloaded from the saddle the hindquarters of a black-tail deer he had shot just before sunset. He cut off a couple of steaks for supper and Ridley raked together the coals of the fire.