“How did they look, Pearse? Describe them,” Hilda interrupted; and when he’d done so, they were identified in her mind as Fayte Marchbanks’s three Romero cousins. Some time during the night Pearse’s horse got away. He felt sure now that one of those three men must have taken off the hobbles and turned it loose, or more probably led it to some near-by place of hiding and picketed it on a short rope, for in the morning they all got out and helped him hunt for it, and that hadn’t been the way they acted the night before, by any means. Also they talked a great deal about feeling to blame for the loss of his mount and wanting to help him out. So they gave him a led pony that they had with them, explaining that it had a broken shoe and he’d better ride easy, turn in at the first ranch he came to which had a blacksmith’s outfit and get the pony re-shod. He did this, but fortunately before he’d told that ranchman his errand, the man offered him the information that a sheriff’s posse was out after cattle thieves and that, in lifting the cattle, these thieves had killed a man and stolen a pony with a broken shoe. He saw the plot then, but it was too late to turn back. He rode all day Saturday, trying to push on to the Three Sorrows. Finally, Saturday night, he abandoned the pony whose broken shoe left a trail that the officers would follow, and in the morning had drifted in, across pastures, to the bank by the spring at the _asequia_, when he looked up and saw two black eyes staring at him right out of the side of a hill. Hilda had brought down needles and thread and was doing her best to make a neat job of mending his coat while they talked. “Where’s Burch?” Pearse asked suddenly, as they heard the thin, penetrating echo of Sam Kee’s gong from upstairs and Hilda got unwillingly to her feet. “He must be a good-sized boy by now. Think maybe you’d better tell him about me? He could help you, couldn’t he?” “Burch is in Fort Worth with Aunt Val,” said Hilda, and was thrillingly glad it was so—that she, Hilda, alone, could do anything for the blessed Boy-On-The-Train. “Aunt Val’s the aunt I told you about, that came out after you people had left Denver. Papa sent for her to come to Texas with us. She doesn’t like it on the ranch. I must run now. Are you all right? I’ll bring you down some supper. Sam Kee will give it to me. Sam was splendid with the sheriff.” As Hilda had expected, the Chinaman was willing enough to give her a good meal for her fugitive, but before she got it smuggled down to him she almost hated Uncle Hank for being so much in the way. There was the later adventure of stealing down with some bedding, and assuring Pearse that he’d be free of the house as soon as Uncle Hank left. He seemed deathly tired and almost careless of what might come if he could only rest.