I had fallen completely under the spell of that skeleton flood. I watched the sun sink, as it sinks at sea, beyond its utmost ragged ridges; I sat on the borders of it, and stared across it in the gray moonlight; I rode out upon it when the Buttes, in their delusive nearness, were as blue as the gates of amethyst, and the morning was as fair as one great pearl; but no peace or radiance of heaven or earth could change its aspect more than that of a mound of skulls. When I began to dream about it, I thought I must be getting morbid. This is worse than Gilroy's, I said; and I promised myself I would ride up there next day and see if by chance one might get a peep at the Rose that all were praising, but none dared put forth a hand to pluck. Was it indeed so hard a case for the Rose? There are women who can love a man for the perils he has passed. Alas, Maverick! could any one get used to a face like that? Here, surely, was the story of Beauty and her poor Beast humbly awaiting, in the mask of a brutish deformity, the recognition of Love pure enough to divine the soul beneath, and unselfish enough to deliver it. Was there such love as that at Gilroy's? However, I did not make that ride. * * * * * It was the fourth night of clear, desert moonlight since Ferris had left me: I was sleepless, and so I heard the first faint throb of a horse's feet approaching from the east, coming on at a great pace, and making the turn to the stage-house. I looked out, and on the trodden space in front I saw Maverick dismounting from a badly blown horse. "Halloo! what's up?" I called from the open window of my bedroom on the ground-floor. "Did two men pass here on horseback since dark?" "Yes," I said; "about twelve o'clock: a tall man and a little short fellow." "Did they stop to water?" "No, they did not; and they seemed in such a tearing hurry that I watched them down the road"-- "I am after those men, and I want a fresh horse," he cut in. "Call up somebody quick!" "Shall you take one of the boys along?" I inquired, with half an eye to myself, after I had obeyed his command. He shook his head. "Only one horse here that's good for anything: I want that myself." "There is my horse," I suggested; "but I'd rather be the one who rides her. She belongs to a friend." "Take her, and come on, then, but understand--this ain't a Sunday-school picnic." "I'm with you, if you'll have me." "I'd sooner have your horse," he remarked, shifting the quid of tobacco in his cheek. "You can't have her without me, unless you steal her," I said. "Git your gun, then, and shove some grub into your pockets: I can't wait for nobody." He swung himself into the saddle. "What road do you take?" "There ain't but one," he shouted, and pointed straight ahead. I overtook him easily within the hour; he was saving his horse, for this was his last chance to change until Champagne Station, fifty miles away.