"Fine job, lettin' th' Kid go out on this skillet," he snorted, indignant at the thought. "Me, now—it don't matter a whole lot what happens to me these days; but th' Kid's got a wife, an' a darned fine one, too. Go on, you lazy cow—yo're work's just startin'."
It was not long before he caught the noise of the hard-driven herd well off to his right and he followed by sound until dawn threatened. Then, slowing his horse, he rode off at an angle and hunted for low places in the desert floor, where he went along a course parallel to that followed by the herd. Persistently keeping from sky lines, although added miles of twisting detours was the price, and keeping so far from his quarry that he barely could pick out the small, dark mass with the aid of the glass, he feared no discovery. So he rode hour after weary hour under the pitiless sun, stopping only once to turn his sombrero into a bucket, from which his horse eagerly drank the contents of one huge canteen, its two gallons of water filling the hat several times.
"Got to go easy with it for awhile, bronch," he told it. "Water can't be so terrible far ahead, judgin' from that herd pushin' boldlike across this strip of desert—but cows can go a long time without it when they has to; an' out here they shore has to. I'm not cheatin' you—there's four for you an' one for me, an' we won't change it."
Mile upon burning mile passed in endless procession as they plodded through hard sand, soft sand, powdery dust, and over stretches of rocky floor blasted smooth and Slippery by the cutting sands driven against it by every wind for centuries. An occasional polished bowlder loomed up, its coat of "desert-varnish" glistening brown tinder the pale, molten sun. He knew what the varnish was, how it had been drawn from the rock and the mineral contents left behind on the surface as its moisture evaporated into the air. An occasional "side-winder," diminutive when compared to the rattlesnakes of other localities, slid curiously across the sand, its beady, glittering eyes cold and vicious as it watched this strange invader of its desert fastness.
Warned at last by the fading light after what had seemed an eternity of glare, he gave the dejected horse another canteen of water and then urged it into brisker pace, to be within earshot of the fleeing herd when darkness should make safe a nearer approach.
With the coming of twilight came a falling of temperature and when the afterglow bathed the desert with magic light and then faded as swiftly as though a great curtain had been dropped the creeping chill took bold, sudden possession of the desert air to a degree unbelievable. So passed the night, weary hour after cold, weary hour; but the change was priceless to man and beast. The magic metamorphosis emphasized the many-sided nature of the desert, at one time a blazing, glaring thing of sinister aspect and death-dealing heat; at another cold, almost freezing, its considerable altitude being good reason for the night's penetrating chill. The expanse of dim gray carpet, broken by occasional dark blots where the scrawny, scattered vegetation arose from the sands, stretched away into the veiling dark, allowing keen eyes to distinguish objects at surprising distances. Overhead blazed the brilliant stars, blazed as only stars in desert heavens can, seeming magnified and brought nearer by the dry, clear air. His eyes at last free from the blinding glare of quivering air and glittering crystals of salts in the sand; his dry, parched, burning skin free from the baking heat, which sucked moisture from the pores before perspiration could form on the surface; he sucked in great gulps of the vitalizing, cold air and found the night so refreshing, so restful as to almost compensate for the loss of sleep.
The increased pace of his mount at last brought reward, for there now came from ahead and from the right the low, confused noise of hurrying cattle, as continuous, unobtrusive, and restful as the soft roar of a distant surf. So passed the dark hours, and then a warning, silver glow on the eastern horizon caused him to pull up and find a sandy depression, there to wait until the proper distance was put behind it by the thirsty herd, still feeling off the miles as though it were immune to fatigue. The silver band widened swiftly, changed to warmer tints, became suffused with crimson and cast long, thin, vague, warning shadows from sage bush and greasewood—and then a molten, quivering orb pushed up over the prostrate horizon and bathed the shrinking sands with its light.
The cold, heavy-lidded rider glowered at it and removed the blanket which had been wrapped around him, rolling it tightly with stiff fingers and fumblingly made it secure in the straps behind the cantle of his saddle.
"There it is again, bronch," he growled. "We'll soon wonder if th' cold was all a dream."
He stood up in the stirrups and peered cautiously over the bank of the depression, making out the herd with unaided eyes.
"They can't go on another day," he muttered. "This ain't just dry trail—it's a chunk out of hades. They can't stand much more of it without goin' blind, an' that's th' beginnin' of th' end on a place like this. I'm bettin' they get to water by noon—an' then we got to wait till th' coast is clear." He shook the canteen he had allotted himself and growled again. "About a quart, an' I could drink a gallon! All right, bronch; get a-goin'," and on they plodded, keeping to the hollows and again avoiding all elevations, to face the torments of another murderous day. Again the accursed hours dragged, again the horse had a canteen of water, a sop which hardly dulled the edge of its raging thirst. Earth, air, and sky quivered, writhed and danced under the jelly-like sun and the few, soft night noises of the desert were heard no more. The leveled telescope kept the herd in sight as mile followed mile across the scorched and scorching sand.
The sun had passed the meridian only half an hour when the sweeping spyglass revealed no herd, but only a distant ridge of rock, like a tiny island on a stilled sea.
"It shore is time," muttered the rider, dismounting. "Seem' as how we're nearly there, I reckon you can have th' last canteen. You shore deserve it, you game old plodder. An' I'm shore glad them rustlin' snakes have their orders to get back pronto; but it would just be our luck if that bull-headed trail-boss held a powpow in that valley of theirs. His name's Roberts, bronch; Hugh Roberts, it is. We'll remember his name an' face if he makes us stay out here till night. You an' me have got. to get to that water before another sunrise if all th' thieves in th' country are campin' on it—we got to, that's all."
An hour passed and then the busy telescope showed a diminutive something moving out past the far end of the distant ridge. Despite the dancing of the heat-distorted image on the object-glass the grim watcher knew it for what it was. Another and another followed it and soon the moving spots strung out against the horizon like a crawling line of grotesque, fantastic insects, silhouetted against the sky.
"There they go back to Mesquite to capture Quayle's hotel an' win th' fight," sneered Hopalong. "I could tell 'em somethin' that would send them th' other way—but we'll let 'em ride with Fate; an' get to that water as quick as yore weary legs can take us. Th' herd is there, bronch; all alone, waitin' for us. It's our herd now, if we want it, which we don't. Huh! Mebby they left a guard! All right, then; he's got a big job on his hands. Come on; get a-goin'!"