As a romantic chapter in their acquaintance, the trip was a flat failure. Nevada was businesslike,--and aloof. Rawley’s faint hope that some unforeseen incident would occur to shock Nevada out of her insouciant mood died of inanition. The camp outfit they found exactly as it had been left, except that a rat had rashly decided to make a nest in a fold of the wrapped tent. This did not seem to interest Nevada in the slightest degree. She helped him with the packing and did not seem to care whether he hurt his newly healed arm or not. They returned as they had gone,--Nevada silent, following the burros that plodded sedately homeward under their loads, Rawley trailing after her in complete discouragement over the rebuffs his friendly overtures had received. They did not so much as see a rattlesnake. CHAPTER NINETEEN THE EAGLE STRIKES The month of inaction which followed fretted Johnny Buffalo nearly as much as the companionship of the squaws had done. In his boyhood he had been trained to serve his sergeant. For fifty years that service had been uninterrupted by ill health or accident. It irked him now to lie idle and watch Rawley burn his fingers on the handle of the frying pan, or wash the dishes from which Johnny Buffalo had been fed. The long days when Rawley was away with Peter were lonesome. There was nothing to do but to seek sedulously after comfort, which is so rare a thing in a camp beside the Colorado in summer that every little whiff of cool breeze is prized, every little change in the monotonous diet makes an impromptu banquet. Sometimes Nevada walked down to camp with things she herself had cooked; but Johnny Buffalo had taken care to insult Gladys and Anita so definitely that they refused to come near him. “I am well enough now to walk,” he announced one evening, when he had insisted upon cooking the supper. “To-day I climbed to the top of that hill. In a sack on my shoulder I carried a rock that weighed twenty-five pounds. I am well. We can go now and find the gold.” “You packed a rock up that hill?” Rawley laid his hands on his hips and squinted at the hill indicated. “You ought to get sun-struck for that. But if you think you’re up to it, we can hit the trail to the mountain about day after to-morrow. I’ll have to drive up to Nelson to-morrow to get more grub and the mail. You might borrow the burros from Peter and meet me at the mouth of the canyon. That will save time and give you a chance to try out your shoulder.” Johnny Buffalo actually grinned and stepped more briskly than was his normal gait, as if he would prove himself as spry as any young man of twenty-six.