After the noon meal, Pat again climbed the hill. He seemed worried about something. When he returned he told Waco to hitch the pintos to the buckboard. "Get your coat," he told Waco. "We're going over to Stacey." Waco's hands trembled. "Say, boss, if you don't mind--" "Get your coat. I'll talk to Buck. You needn't to worry. I'll square you with Buck. We can use you here." Waco did as he was told. They drove out of the yard. Waco leaped down and closed the gate. The pintos shook themselves into the harness and trotted down the faintly marked new road. The buckboard swayed and jolted. Something rubbed against Waco's hip. He glanced down and saw Pat's gun on the seat between them. Pat said nothing. He was thinking hard. The cowboy messenger's manner had not been natural. The note bore the printed heading of the sheriff's office. Perhaps it was all right. And if it were not, Pat was not the man to back down from a bluff. Several miles out from the ranch ran the naked posts of the line fence. Pat reined in the ponies and gazed up and down the line. A mile beyond, the ranch road merged with the main-traveled highway running east and west. He spoke to the horses. They broke into a fast trot. Waco, gripping the seat, stared straight ahead. Why had Pat laid that gun on the seat? A thin, gray veil drifted across the sun. From the northwest a light wind sprang up and ran across the mesa, whipping the bunch-grass. The wind grew heavier, and with it came a fine, dun-colored dust. An hour and the air was thick with a shifting red haze of sand. The sun glowed dimly through the murk. Waco turned up his coat-collar and shivered. The air was keen. The ponies fought the bit, occasionally breaking into a gallop. Pat braced his feet and held them to a trot. A weird buzzing came down the wind. The ponies reared and took to the ditch as a machine flicked past and drummed away in the distance. To Waco, rigid and staring, the air seemed filled with a kind of hovering terror, a whining threat of danger that came in bursts of driving sand and dwindled away to harsh whisperings. He stood it as long as he could. Pat had not spoken. [Illustration: A huddled shape near a boulder] Waco touched his arm. "I got a hunch," he said hoarsely,--"I got a hunch we oughta go back." Pat nodded. But the ponies swept on down the road, their manes and tails whipping in the wind. Another mile and they slowed down in heavy sand. The buckboard tilted forward as they descended the sharp pitch of an arroyo. Unnoticed, Pat's gun slipped to the floor of the wagon. In the arroyo the wind seemed to have died away, leaving a startled quietness. It still hung above them, and an occasional gust filled their eyes with grit. Waco drew a deep breath. The ponies tugged through the heavy sand.