The men drew rein beside a little stream. They watered the horses, and then, throwing off saddle-bags and gathering brush, they built a tiny fire. Glover appeared nervous and worried, and when the meal was ended turned to mount and be off again. But Johnson called him back. Johnson was seated on the ground, close beside Jim, and Glover sat down with them. Thus they waited, silent, reflective, watching, while about them pressed the close night, seeming by its touch to impart to them something of its solemnity. Off at one side the horses, bridled and saddled, waited also--watching and waiting, motionless, and over them all brooded a stillness that was mighty and portentous. Thus they waited for two hours, wrapped in profound silence, and then Johnson, after scanning the sky, rose and made for the horses. The others quickly followed him. Their trail led into a narrow defile. Up this winding way they rode, with Johnson in the lead, up and ever up, until they burst through a clump of brush at the top. There they drew rein and again waited, silent, reflective, watching. Presently Glover, with eyes turned eastward, uttered a grunt which meant relief. The clouds in the eastern sky were breaking. Through the heavy banks came a faint glimmering of moonlight. At first but a hair-line, it widened out, reaching up and across the sky, developing steadily into the semblance of a frozen flash of heat lightning, until all the eastern heavens showed a shimmering expanse, broken here and there by black clouds sullenly holding their own, which flooded the underscudding desert in beautiful mottled gray-green coloring. Wider and wider the light spread, up and away on either hand, moving stealthily across the sky, until the sheen of it broke over the ridge itself, and then swept beyond to the west, laying bare a broad expanse of mesa dotted with gray-green specks that told of the presence of hundreds of cattle. And now the sullen clouds took to weaving, swaying under the pressure of upper-air currents, the specks below beginning to lift and fall with the motion of the clouds like bits of wreckage undulate on the sea. The air-drifts descended, came closer, fanning the cheeks of the men, rustling through the leaves which crowned the ridge, and breaking the heavy silence. The air-currents flicked the desert with their freight of swift-moving shadows, causing strange movement among the bits of wreckage--the cattle. It was a glorious march, lighting up the western expanse beneath and revealing a flat country, unbroken by dune or cleft as far as the eye could penetrate. So the light moved on, crowding before it sullen shadows which presently disappeared. Johnson broke the stillness. "We'd better move along down," he said, and shook Pat's reins.