Soon coffee, bacon, and canned beans were on the fire, and, with tin plates in their hands, the two hungry travelers sat down with sighs of anticipation. Harry had taken a first mouthful, when suddenly she pointed. "Look! What is it?" Rob turned, and saw in the darkness the gleam of yellow eyes. "A coyote!" he exclaimed, overturning his plate as he scrambled to his feet. "If only I had my rifle with me now!" He snatched up a bit of blazing sagebrush to fling at the animal, which, oddly enough, had not fled. "Why, it's a dog!" Harry cried suddenly. Trembling with fear, yet unable to resist the smell of food, the little animal crawled forward until he was close to the fire. "It's starved, that's what's the matter," declared Harry, who had put down her plate and was coaxing the dog close enough to pat it. "Just feel his poor bones. And look at his foot, too. He's been beaten nearly to death." "He's hardly more than a puppy. He must belong to some of these herders round here. Brutes some of 'em are. I've heard they'll beat a dog to death if they get mad at him. And they'd even tie up a horse without food or water all day and night. You'd better turn him loose, Harry. If he should belong to a 'Mex' the fellow'll be around after him." "I'll wait till he comes." She put down a plate of food for the dog who devoured it with mad hunger. Then he crawled into the shelter of the canvas which Rob had let down beside the wagon as a windbreak, and lay there until supper was finished and the beds unrolled. When Harry lay down in her roll of quilts, the little, black, sheep dog crept up beside her. "You dear thing," she murmured. "Whoever owned you didn't deserve to, and I'm going to keep you." For a few moments she was conscious of her strange, new surroundings: the cañon walls, thousands of stars above her, the monotone of the stream. The next she knew daylight was pouring into the cañon, Rob was cutting brush for the fire and the black puppy, shivering silently, was watching her with one eye. Harry reached out and drew him up beside her. "I'm certainly going to keep you, you little black rascal. You're as black as Othello. There! That's your name." After breakfast when they were ready to start she lifted the dog up into the wagon. "He can ride, can't he, Bobs?" Rob smiled but answered gravely: "Honestly, I'd turn him loose, Harry. If you want a dog I'll get you one, in fact we'll have to have one to work for us. But it's risky picking up one that may belong to some crazy sheep herder. You don't realize what these fellows are. Nearly every one of them is off his nut from living alone, and if they do get a notion you're trying to do them out of anything, like as not they'll have it in for you." "Oh, Bobs! Please don't make me leave him," Harry begged. "See him look at me." "All right. But don't get scared when some 'Mex' begins to look at him." "Scared! Just refer any one that wants him to me." CHAPTER II