that he had met with approval. Also, he realized
that he rather approved of the man. Then came
a volley of sounds he did not understand, and he
found himself touched with grave apprehension.
But not for long. The man led him across the
ledge to a tiny stream trickling down the rocks,
walking with a quiet dignity he long since had
learned to connect with kindliness. This and
the fact that he led him to water determined his
attitude.

Toward noon, as he was brooding over hunger
pangs, he was startled by excited gutturals among
the men. Gazing, he saw one of the men
standing on the edge of the shelf, pointing out
through the long canyon. With the others, Pat
turned his eyes that way. Between the distant
V dotting the mesa beyond rode a body of horsemen.
They were not more than specks to his eyes,
proceeding slowly, so slowly, in fact, that while
he could see they were moving he yet could not
see them move as they crawled across the span
between the canyon's mouth. Interested, gripped
in the contagion of the excitement round him, he
kept his eyes upon the distant specks until the
sun had changed to another angle. But even
after this lapse of time, so distant were the horsemen,
so wide the canyon's mouth, they had traveled
only half-way across the span. Yet he continued
to watch, wondering at the nervousness around
him, conscious of steadily increasing heat upon
him, until the last of the slow-moving specks,
absorbed one by one by the canyon's wall, disap-

[[244]]

p243 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p244w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p245

v?