With these directions, Mrs. Horn sent Johnson to The Tanks to meet the Burro express. It was called that by the sparse population of the region in a spirit of levity: a burro will pause to graze on the least excuse and takes joy in lying down with his pack. It was twenty-seven miles from the ranch to The Tanks, and Manuel would follow with a buckboard and mule team, since it was manifestly absurd to expect Mrs. Vining to make the journey horseback. Lafe was much elated to be chosen for this mission and invited me to accompany him. "Miz Horne," said he, "wouldn't send a greenhorn. No, sir; she wants somebody who'll look like something in decent company. Say, if I get any stronger with ol' Horne, he'd ought to raise me. Don't you reckon?" Cheered by the prospect, he began a monologue to his horse, a habit Mr. Johnson had acquired in lonely places. "Doggone your fat head, why can't you lift your feet? Hey? Hold still, can't you, till I light this cigarette? Oh, you needn't look back. You know I'm here all right." In early afternoon we crossed a canon on the far side of The Hatter and turned to the left along a mesa. Lafe puckered his eyes, squinted carefully and said: "Well, I swan. Do you see that?" A man was sitting on the skull of a horse and he was counting the tops of the hills. It struck me as a profitless form of endeavor. As we neared him: "No," he remarked, "that's not right. I made it two thousand and three before." "Off in your tally, pardner?" Lafe inquired civilly. He proceeded, unheeding, with his simple addition. "One thousand and seventy-six, and those five little fellows make--what do they make, now?" He broke off to scratch his head in vexation. He looked at Johnson briefly and then stared at me. "That fellow there," he said, with a nod at Lafe, "that fellow's crazy. Everybody's crazy out here--all but me." He was not an old man, but his hair was grizzled and fell in dirty disorder to his shoulders. We could see portions of him through his clothes, and a sleeve of his shirt was not. Yet I began to marvel, for he spoke with the accent of culture. "There used to be three thousand four hundred and eight scrub-cedars on that big mountain yonder," he confided to me. "I've lost count a bit lately, though. What do you make 'em?" "You're short six. Four hundred and fourteen--not four hundred and eight." He thanked me and considered this for some minutes. "Perhaps you're right," he said. "Sometimes when these old rocks take to hopping up and down, it keeps a man on the move not to lose track of 'em." "It must be right hard doing that 'rithmetic all day long?" Johnson ventured. "Oh, yes. I get hungry frequently. Have you boys got anything to eat? Well, if you haven't, you'd best be on your way." Complying with the suggestion, Lafe turned his horse. "It's that ol' prospector who lives up on the shoulder of The Hatter," he told me.