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Billy Byrne and Eddie Shorter rode steadily in the direction of the hills Upon either side and at intervals of a mile or more stretched the others of their party, occasionally visible; but for the er see their friends or be seen by them

Both Byrne and Eddie felt that chance had placed the-used path wound upward through a canyon along which they rode It was an excellent location for an ambush, and both men breathed more freely when they had passed out of it into more open country upon a narrow tableland between the first foothills and the ain was the trail wellahead, saw that it appeared to lead in the direction of a vivid green spot close to the base of the gray brown hills he gave an exclaht, old man," he said "They's water there," and he pointed ahead at the green splotch upon the gray "That's where they'd be havin' their village I ain't never been up here so I ain't familiar with the country You see we don't run no cattle this side the river-- the Pimans won't let us They don't care to have no white men pokin' round in their country; but I'll bet a hat we find a careen Soround, or wound through gullies and ravines it was lost to their sight; but always they kept it as their goal The trail they were upon led to it--of that there could be no longer the slightest doubt And as they rode with their destination in view black, beady eyes looked down upon theed their ponies--tiring now from the climb

A lithe, brown body lay stretched coe of a little rise of ground beneath which the riders must pass before they came to the cluster of huts which squatted in a tiny natural park at the foot of theof clear, pure water bubbled out of thethe rocks which held it And with this water the Piain into the earth just below their village Beside the brown body lay a long rifle The , the two specks far below hios