The explanation was simple. Just now, immediately after the rains, this hidden box cañon was saturated with drainage from the slopes above and behind. Either the growth of grass here was natural, or as was more likely, it had been sown by the occupants of the cañon. “Set,” said Sagebrush, slipping off his pack and squatting down. Ramsay followed suit, and the desert rat softly elucidated the situation. “We got things straight now, Perfesser. This yere crowd is right happily located, for a fact! The idee is, they slide acrost the hills to the Chuckwalla range and slide back with a few hosses picked up over there. When they get a right good remuda, they drive ’em over to the railroad at Meteorite, or maybe up north acrost the Salt Pans to Silver City. They keep ’em yere maybe six months till the hair’s growed out over the rebrand, and by that time everybody’s give up looking: they prob’ly git a lot o’ foals, too.” “With a base of supplies at Stovepipe Springs, they’re safe,” commented Ramsay. “And Sidewinder Crowfoot is the brains of the outfit. All right. What d’you want to do?” “Sneak up and look things over. Better let me do it when we git right close. Then I’ll come back yere and lay up in these yere rocks with both guns handy. You cut around and open fire on them shacks. You’ll jest naturally catch ’em penned up, and if they git away, I’ll catch ’em yere. If they don’t bust loose, I’ll come over and help you. How’s that strike ye, Per-fesser?” “First rate,” said Ramsay. “What does Tom Emery look like?” “Red whiskers. Can’t miss him. Let’s mosey along.” They rose, picked up their loads, and set forth. In the darkness of the upper cañon, with the stars glimmering far above, the scout was made, and all things considered, it was a good scout. But when it had been ended, the two men drew off together for consultation, upon both of them settled a silent consternation. For here was a factor they had not reckoned on. Three cabins, and in one of them four men sitting playing cards, a lantern swinging from a rafter. One was Tom Emery—a brutal giant of a man with a great fringe of flaring red whiskers and matted red hair, a murderer and escaped jailbird with a price on his head. One, whom old Sagebrush did not know, was a swarthy halfbreed, doubtless the Cholo Bill mentioned by the dying Alec Ramsay—a slender, furtive man, on the surface all smiles, and all deviltry beneath. The third card-player was identified as Gentleman Jimson, an elderly man with handsome, ascetic features and the general air of a benevolent preacher. He had escaped from a California penitentiary three years previously, where he was serving a life term for murder and forgery. The last of the four men was a pure Mexican, one Manuel Ximines—a scowling, sullen scoundrel from below the border, a murderer of women. Not all this had given the two friends pause, however, but the shrill wail of an infant from one of the other shacks, and the thin voices of two Mexican women.