Dropping to his knees, he fell to work with feverish haste unbuckling straps and bands. With the harness loose, he dragged it off and tossed it to one side. Then, still moving feverishly, he led the mate to the mare off the trail, turned to the wagon with bracing shoulder, backed it clear of the prostrate animal, and swung it out of the way of future passing vehicles. It was sweltering work. When it was done, with the sun, risen to its fierce zenith, beating down upon him mercilessly, he strode off the trail, blowing and perspiring, and flung himself down in the baking sand, where, though irritated by particles of sand which had sifted down close inside his shirt, he nevertheless gave himself over to sober reflections. He was stalled till the next morning--he knew that. And he was without food-supplies to carry him over. And he was ten miles on the one hand, and five up-canyon miles on the other, from all source of supplies. But against these unpleasant facts there stood many pleasant facts--he was on the return leg of his journey, his wagon was empty, and he had in his possession three dollars. Then, too, there was another pleasant fact. The trip as a trip had been unusual; never before had he, or any one else, made it under two days--one for loading and driving into town, and a second for getting rid of the wood and making the return. Yet he himself had been out now only the one day, and he was on his way home. He had whipped and crowded his horses since midnight to just this end. Yet was he not stalled now till morning? And would not this delay set him back the one day he had gained over his fellow-townsmen? And would not these same fellow-townsmen rejoice in this opportunity to overtake him--worse, to leave him behind? They would! "Oh, well," he concluded, philosophically, stretching out upon his back and drawing his worn and ragged sombrero over his eyes, "soon is comin' a _potrillo_." With this he deliberately courted slumber.