previous day. After a while the footing got better, and we made better time.
The sun climbed high enough to let its rays down on us, and the comparative coolness in which we had been riding went away. At noon we stopped to rest the horses, eat a couple of sandwiches, and smoke a bit. Then we went on.
Presently the sun passed, began to crawl down on our right, and shadows grew in the canyon. The welcome shade had reached the east wall when Milk River, in front, stopped.
“Around this next bend it is.”
We dismounted, took a drink apiece, blew the sand off our rifles, and went forward afoot, toward a clump of bushes that covered the crooked canyon’s next twist.
Beyond the bend, the floor of the canyon ran downhill into a round saucer. The saucer’s sides sloped gently up to the desert floor. In the middle of the saucer, four low adobe buildings sat. In spite of their exposure to the desert sun, they looked somehow damp and dark. From one of them a thin plume of bluish smoke rose. Water ran out of a rock-bordered hole in one sloping canyon-wall, disappearing in a thin stream that curved behind one of the buildings.
No man, no animal was in sight.
“I’m going to prospect down there,” Milk River said, handing me his hat and rifle.
“Right,” I agreed. “I’ll cover you, but if anything breaks, you’d better get out of the way. I’m not the most dependable rifle-shot in the world!”
For the first part of his trip Milk River had plenty of cover. He went ahead rapidly. The screening plants grew fewer. His pace fell off. Flat on