‘You see, everything we need is there,’ he added. ‘Lead the way, Doc.’ The second morning afterward, Elbert looked up into a range of hills, remarking that he thought the Dry Cache was up there. ‘San Forenso is twenty miles ahead, and we’d have to circle back, if we went there. The mine must be straight up from here. Yes, I think those are our mountains, all right,’ he added. ‘I remember your father said you could look over into California and back into Sonora from just above the mine--’ ‘It’s giddap with me. Persuade yourself--’ But the mountains that had looked so feasible from the railroad turned sinister and rebellious as they climbed. Forty miles around would have been simple to the twenty they had made before sundown that day--a waterless fight all the way. They were in the big timber of the altitudes again in the lengthening shadows, and Elbert looked at the man beside him, riding on hard gray nerve; then at the drooping head of his own mare in front. He had given in to a sort of mania to get into high country. It had been getting clearer for hours that he should have gone straight to San Forenso, from where he could have been sure of his way to the claim. It might be best to turn back to the railroad now--while there was a bit of light.... Just at this instant Mamie’s ears pricked; her body came to life under the saddle. The sullen eye of the gelding caught a flash of her new fire. She broke into a trot, starting down-grade. They crossed a sloping bench of big timber and checked down into a valley open to the western light. ‘I don’t see any trail, but she’s sure got an idea!’ Elbert called. ‘She sure has,’ Bart panted, ‘and I’m for it--’ In the open, she veered swiftly to the left, making for a cañon mouth, and then in letters writhing a little before Elbert’s dazed eyes: ‘Are You Doomed?’ on its white rock! The living fact of the Flats broke upon him. ‘Why, we’re home, Bart!’ he gasped. ‘The cabin’s back a ways. She’s makin’ for the last water--’ ‘First water I’ve seen in some time,’ came from the other, as Elbert helped him down. * * * * * There was dusk and wood-smoke; the grinding of the coffee-mill, the sputter of bacon oil for flapjacks, a deadlock on the matter of whether a can of Michigan pears should be opened or Hawaiian pineapple--finally both, for it was a fiesta night at the Dry Cache mine, and the stores were endless. They had fared slim for some days and ridden hard. Few words, because Elbert felt a bulge in his throat from the pressure of unfamiliar joys. After supper, he left Bart and led the two horses, in their ‘cooling’ blankets, down to the last water to finish their deep drink for the night, also to refill canteens. Bart came out of the cabin, as he returned, and they sat down in the clean straw when grain was fed, leaning their backs against the fence.