Desert Gold

  "Lucky ain't enough word," replied Ladd.  "You see, it was this way. Some of the raiders piled over the fence while the others worked on the gate.  Mebbe the Papago went inside to pick out the best hosses.  But it didn't work except with Diablo, an' how they ever got him I don't know.  I'd have gambled it'd take all of eight men to steal him.  But Greasers have got us skinned on handlin' hosses."

  Belding was unconsolable.  He cursed and railed, and finally declared he was going to trail the raiders.

  "Tom, you just ain't agoin' to do nothin' of the kind," said Ladd coolly.

  Belding groaned and bowed his head.

  "Laddy, you're right," he replied, presently.  "I've got to stand it.  I can't leave the women and my property.  But it's sure tough. I'm sore way down deep, and nothin' but blood would ever satisfy me."

  "Leave that to me an' Jim," said Ladd.

  "What do you mean to do?" demanded Belding, starting up.

  "Shore I don't know yet....Give me a light for my pipe.  An' Dick, go fetch out your Yaqui."Chapter VIII - The Running of Blanco Sol

  The Yaqui's strange dark glance roved over the corral, the swinging gate with its broken fastenings, the tracks in the road, and then rested upon Belding.

  "Malo," he said, and his Spanish was clear.

  "Shore Yaqui, about eight bad men, an' a traitor Indian," said Ladd.

  "I think he means my herder," added Belding.  "If he does, that settles any doubt it might be decent to have–Yaqui–malo Papago–Si?"

  The Yaqui spread wide his hands.  Then he bent over the tracks in the road.  They led everywhither, but gradually he worked out of the thick net to take the trail that the cowboys had followed down to the river.  Belding and the rangers kept close at his heels. Occasionally Dick lent a helping hand to the still feeble Indian. He found a trampled spot where the raiders had left their horses. From this point a deeply defined narrow trail led across the dry river bed.

  Belding asked the Yaqui where the raiders would head for in the Sonora Desert.  For answer the Indian followed the trail across the streem of sand, through willows and mesquite, up to the level of rock and cactus.  At this point he halted.  A sand-filled, almost obliterated trail led off to the left, and evidently went round to the east of No Name Mountains.  To the right stretched the road toward Papago Well and the Sonoyta Oasis.  The trail of the raiders took a southeasterly course over untrodden desert. The Yaqui spoke in his own tongue, then in Spanish.

  "Think he means slow march," said Belding.  "Laddy, from the looks of that trail the Greasers are having trouble with the horses."

  "Tom, shore a boy could see that," replied Laddy "Ask Yaqui to tell us where the raiders are headin', an' if there's water."

  It was wonderful to see the Yaqui point.  His dark hand stretched, he sighted over his stretched finger at a low white escarpment in the distance.  Then with a stick he traced a line in the sand, and then at the end of that another line at right angles.  He made crosses and marks and holes, and as he drew the rude map he talked in Yaqui, in Spanish; with a word here and there in English. Belding translated as best he could.  The raiders were heading southeast toward the railroad that ran from Nogales down into Sonora.  It was four days' travel, bad trail, good sure waterhole one day out; then water not sure for two days.  Raiders traveling slow; bothered by too many horses, not looking for pursuit; were never pursued, could be headed and ambushed that night at the first waterhole, a natural trap in a valley.

  The men returned to the ranch.  The rangers ate and drank while making hurried preparations for travel.  Blanco Sol and the cowboys' horses were fed, watered, and saddled.  Ladd again refused to ride one of Belding's whites.  He was quick and cold.

  "Get me a long-range rifle an' lots of shells.  Rustle now," he said.

  "Laddy, you don't want to be weighted down?" protested Belding.

  "Shore I want a gun that'll outshoot the dinky little carbines an' muskets used by the rebels.  Trot one out an' be quick."

  "I've got a .405, a long-barreled heavy rifle that'll shoot a mile. I use it for mountain sheep.  But Laddy, it'll break that bronch's back."

  "His back won't break so easy....Dick, take plenty of shells for your Remington.  An' don't forget your field glass."

  In less than an hour after the time of the raid the three rangers, heavily armed and superbly mounted on fresh horses, rode out on the trail.  As Gale turned to look back from the far bank of Forlorn River, he saw Nell waving a white scarf.  He stood high in his stirrups and waved his sombrero.  Then the mesquites hid the girl's slight figure, and Gale wheeled grim-faced to follow the  rangers.