The cowboy reined in his horse, listened a moment, then swung down
out of the saddle. He raised a cautioning hand to the others, then
slipped into the gloom and disappeared. Gale marked that the halt
had been made in a ridged and cut-up pass between low mesas.
He could see the columns of cactus standing out black against
the moon-white sky. The horses were evidently tiring, for they showed
no impatience. Gale heard their panting breaths, and also the bark
of some animal--a dog or a coyote. It sounded like a dog, and this
led Gale to wonder if there was any house near at hand. To the
right, up under the ledges some distance away, stood two square
black objects, too uniform, he thought, to be rocks. While he was
peering at them, uncertain what to think, the shrill whistle of a
horse pealed out, to be followed by the rattling of hoofs on hard
stone. Then a dog barked. At the same moment that Ladd hurriedly
appeared in the road a light shone out and danced before one of
the square black objects.
"Keep close an' don't make no noise," he whispered, and led his
horse at right angles off the road.
Gale followed, leading Mercedes's horse. As he turned he observed
that Lash also had dismounted.
To keep closely at Ladd's heels without brushing the cactus or
stumbling over rocks and depressions was a task Gale found impossible.
After he had been stabbed several times by the bayonetlike spikes,
which seemed invisible, the matter of caution became equally one
of self-preservation.
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