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CHAPTER XVI. EDDIE MAKES GOOD

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 most part not. Once in the hills the two could no

longer see their friends or be seen by them.

Both Byrne and Eddie felt that chance had placed them upon the right trail for a

well-marked and long-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 main range of mountains.

Here again was the trail well marked, and when Eddie, looking ahead, 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 exclamation of assurance.

We're on the right trail all right, 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 camp there."

Onward they rode toward the little spot of green. Sometimes it was in sight and

again as they approached higher ground, 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 them

from the very green oasis toward which they urged their ponies--tiring now from

the climb.

A lithe, brown body lay stretched comfortably upon a bed of grasses at the edge 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 the main peak.

Far above the watcher a spring of clear, pure water bubbled out of the mountain-

side, and running downward formed little pools among the rocks which held it.

And with this water the Pimans irrigated their small fields before it sank from

sight again into the earth just below their village. Beside the brown body lay a

long rifle. The man's eyes watched, unblinking, the two specks far below him

whom he knew and had known for an hour were gringos.

281

The Mucker