The world changed quickly. The spruce, the aspens, and even the scrub oak vanished and in its place there was juniper--dry, defiant of the heat, sending its roots deep into the yellow earth, down cracks in the sand rock. The canyons were walled with red and yellow sandstone. The washes were bedded deep with sand instead of water, and the wind made the sand creep along, piling it into the dunes on the mesas, knifing it out in drifts from the ledges of rimrock. The days were hot and dry, but the nights were cool to the point of chillness. From sentinel buttes or rims they sometimes sighted copper-skinned Navajos riding always at a gallop, on lean, bony ponies. The Navajos were always hurrying, though they had no place to go and all eternity to get there in. Once Lady Ebony sighted a summer hogan with two Navajo women and four children sitting in the shade of a canopy of dry leaves and cottonwood branches. The women were patiently slipping colored thread across a loom, back and forth, back and forth, one thread above another. Below the hogan a sad-looking band of sheep and goats cropped at the short grass. The chestnut stallion snorted angrily when he smelled the grass where the sheep had been. He did not like sheep taint. He led the band far from the pasture lands of that Navajo family. 3. Horse Thief Sam’s claim was not a gold strike or a bonanza. It was a pocket, very definite, and certainly limited in the amount of gravel and black sand which carried much fine and some coarse gold. Sam knew its extent and its possibilities. He had kept its location a careful secret. It was not legally staked, for in staking it he would have brought a swarm of gold seekers to the ridge, and he wanted this country to himself. He would take out enough to buy the black mare plus enough to buy supplies for the winter. When he finished there would still be gold left, a sort of bank account to be hoarded against the coming seasons. For three weeks Sam shoveled and panned. At last he had enough yellow dust in his buck-hide pouch. He carefully buried his shovel, pick, and pan under a pile of rocks, covered his workings, and faced down the ridge. As he trudged slowly through the fields of columbine and mountain lupine, he smiled softly to himself. The major would be completely flabbergasted. Sam laughed aloud, startling a cocky jay. The gaily dressed fellow fluffed his feathers and his purple crest bristled. He burst into a volley of angry chattering as he hopped about in a young balsam tree. “Got a right to ha-ha,” Sam said aloud. “The ol’ glory hole come through with five hunnert an’ some extra fer grub. Left me a bit fer seed, too.” He continued to chuckle as he tramped along.