"Well, we got on the trail," he announced as soon as he was close enough. "And
we follered it to water. Applehead says fer you to come on and make camp.
Tracks are fresher around that' water-hole'n what they have been, an'
Applehead, he's all enthused. I betche we land them fellers t'morrow."
Out of the arroyo in a place where the scant grassland lapped down over the
edge, Happy Jack led the way and the rest followed eagerly. Too often had they
made dry camp not to feel jubilant over the prospect even of a brackish
water-hole. Even the horses seemed to know and to step out more briskly.
Straight across the mesa with its deceptive lights that concealed distance
behind a glamor of intimate nearness, they rode into the deepening dusk that
had a glow all through it. After a while they dipped into a grassy draw so
shallow that they hardly realized the descent until they dismounted at the
bottom, where Applehead was already starting a fire and the others were laying
out their beds and doing the hundred little things that make for comfort in
camp.
A few bushes and a stunted tree or two marked the spring that seeped down and
fed a shallow water-hole where the horses drank thirstily.
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