Sometime later he had his answer, for he found himself riding towards a water hole and then he knew the reason for the trail swinging north. He let his mount drink its fill and while he waited he noticed a torn sombrero, then a spur, and further away the skeleton of a horse. Looking further he saw the skeleton of a man, all that the coyotes had left of the body of Dick Archer, the man killed by Red on the day when he and Hopalong had discovered that Thunder Mesa was inhabited. He pushed around the water hole and then caught sight of something in the sand. Edging his mount over to it he leaned down from the saddle and picked up a Colt's revolver, fully loaded and as good as the day Archer died. That air contained no moisture. As he slipped it in a saddle bag he spurred forward at top speed, for on the other side of a hummock he saw the head and then the full figure of a man plodding away from him, and it was Antonio. The fugitive, hearing hoofbeats, looked back and then dropped to one knee, his rifle going to his shoulder with the movement. "Where in h--l did _he_ get a rifle?" ejaculated Doc, forcing his horse to buck-jump and pitch so as to be an erratic target. "He didn't have none when _I_ grabbed him! Th' devil! That cussed skeleton back there gave _me_ a six-shooter, an' _him_ a rifle!" There was a dull smothered report and he saw the Mexican drop the gun and rock back and forth, apparently in agony, and he rode forward at top speed. Jerking his horse to its haunches he leaped off it just as Antonio wiped the blood from his eyes and jerked loose his Remington six-shooter. But his first shot missed and before he could fire again Doc grappled with him.