“You bet; I’ve got it all marked out, the same as a pilot on the Missouri.  Ye see that sway-back ridge yonder?” pointing with his whip into the distance ahead.  “That’s what I’m headin’ for now an’ when I git thar a round rock will show up down a sorter gully.  Furst time I came over yere long with Lacy, I wrote all these yere things down.”

Conversation ceased, the drear depression of the scene resting heavily on the minds of all three.  Moore sat humped shapelessly in his seat, permitting the horses to toil on wearily, the wagon rumbling along across the hard packed sand, the wheels leaving scarcely a mark behind.  Sikes stared gloomily out on his side, the rifle still between his knees, his jaws working vigorously on a fresh chew of tobacco.  Stella looked at the two men, their faces now clearly revealed in the brightening dawn, but the survey brought little comfort.  Sikes was evidently of wild blood—­a half-breed, if his swarthy skin and high cheek bones meant any characteristics of race—­scarcely more than a savage by nature, and rendered even more decadent by the ravages of drink.  He was sober enough now, but this only left him the more morose and sullen, his bloodshot eyes ugly and malignant.  The girl shrank from him as a full realisation of what the man truly was came to her with this first distinct view.

Moore was a much younger man, his face roughened, and tanned, to almost the colour of mahogany, yet somehow retaining a youthful look.  He was not unprepossessing in a bold, daring way; a fellow who would seek adventure, and meet danger with a laugh.  He turned as she looked at him, and grinned back at her, pointing humorously to a badly discoloured eye.

“Friend o’ yours gave me that,” he admitted, quite as a matter of course.  “Did a good job, too.”

“A friend of mine?” in surprise.

“Sure; you’re a friend o’ Jim Westcott, ain’t yer?  Lacy said so, and Jim’s the laddy-buck who whaled me.”

“Mr. Westcott!  When?”

“Last night.  You see it was this way.  I caught him hanging round the office at La Rosita, an’ we had a fight.  I don’t just know what I did to him, but that’s part o’ what he did to me.  I never knowed much about him afore, but he’s sure some scrapper; an’ I had a knife in my fist, too.”

“Then—­then,” her breath choking her, “he got away?”

Moore laughed, no evidence of animosity in his actions.

“I reckon so, miss.  I ain’t seen nuthin’ of him since, an’ the way Bill Lacy wus cussing when I got breathin’ straight agin would ‘a’ shocked a coyote.  He’ll git him, though.”

“Get him?”

“Sure—­Bill will.  He always gets his man.  I’ve seen more’n one fellow try to put something over on Lacy, but it never worked in the end.  He’s hell on the trigger, an’ the next time he and Bill come together, Westcott’s bound to get his.  Ain’t that the truth, Joe?”

Sikes nodded his head, a gleam of appreciation in his eyes.