"Bobby. I tied up his pony and hobbled the rest. At daylight they wasn't in sight. Bobby went after 'em. I waited a long time and then I hobbled off down here to see. Wagon's five or six miles north. One of my spans come from down in Sonora, somewhere--Santa Elena, wherever that is--and I reckon they're dragging it for home and the others have followed, unless--unless Bob's pony has fallen, or something. He didn't take any water. He could follow the tracks back here on this hard ground. But in the sand down there--with all this wind--" His eye turned to the shimmering white sandhills along the south, with the dust clouds high above them. "Boland, you'll have to give Carr your horse," said Pete. "It's his boy; and you're 'most dead anyhow. We'll light a big blaze when we find him, and another on this edge of the sandhills in case you don't see the first. We'll make two of 'em, a good ways apart, if everything is all right. You take a canteen and crawl under a bush and rest a while. You need it. If you feel better after a spell, you can follow these horse tracks back and hobble along to the wagon; or we can pick you up as we come back. Come on, boys!" "But your mine?" said Carr. He pointed to a slow dust streak that passed along the north. "I saw you coming--two bunches. Ain't those fellows after your mine? 'Cause if they are, they'll sure find it. You've been riding straight for them little hills out there all alone in the big middle of the plain." "Damn the mine!" said Pete. "We've been playing. We've got man's work to do now. No; there's no use splitting up and sending one or two to the mine. That mine is a four-man job. So is this; and a better one. We're all needed here. To hell with the mine! Come on!" * * * * * They found Bobby, far along in the afternoon, in the sandhills. His lips were cracked and bleeding; his tongue was beginning to blacken and swell; his eyes were swollen nearly shut from alkali dust, and there was an ugly gash in the hair's edge above his left ear; he was caked with blood and mire, and he clung to the saddle horn with both hands--but he drove six horses before him. They gave him, a little at a time, the heated water from their canteens. A few small drinks cheered him up amazingly. After a big soapweed was touched off for a signal fire, he was able to tell his story.