“Hello!” shouted Gary, going toward them. The cañon wall echoed the shout. The two dropped their canteens and fled incontinently out toward the open. Gary walked over to the pool, caught the two canteen straps, filled the canteens and went after the men, considerably puzzled. He came upon them at their camp, beside a ten-foot ledge outcropping, a hundred yards or so below the pool. They were standing by their horses, evidently debating the question of moving on. “Here’s your canteens,” Gary announced as he walked up to them. “What’s the big idea--running off like that?” “Hello,” one responded guardedly. “We don’t see who hollers. That’s bad place. Don’t like ’m.” They were Indians, though by their look they might almost be Mexicans. They were dressed much as Monty Girard had been clothed, in blue overalls and denim jacket, with old gray Stetson hats and coarse, sand-rusted shoes. Gary lowered the canteens to the ground beside their little camp fire and got out his tobacco and papers, while he looked the two over. “So you think it’s a bad place, do you? Is that why you camp out here?” “Them cañon no good,” stated the other Indian, speaking for the first time. “Too much holler all time no see ’m. That’s bad luck.” “You mean the man up on the bluff, that hollers so much?” Gary eyed them interestedly. “Who is he? You fellows know anything about it?” They looked at one another and muttered some Indian words. The old man began to unpack the apathetic mule standing with dropped lip behind the two saddle horses. “You know Monty Girard?” Gary asked, lighting his cigarette and proffering his smoking material to the younger Indian when he saw an oblique glance go hungrily to the smoke. “Yass! Monty Girard. His camp by Kawich,” the old man answered in a tone of relief that the subject had changed. “Well, I don’t know where Kawich is--I’m a stranger in the country. Seen him lately?” Gary waved his hand for the younger Indian to pass the tobacco and papers to the older buck. “Seen Monty lately?” “Nah. We don’t see him, two months, maybe.” The old buck was trying to conceal his pleasure over the tobacco. Gary thought of something. “You see any Walking X horses--work horses, or saddle horses?” With characteristic Indian deliberation the two waited until their cigarettes were going before either replied. Then the old man, taking his time in the telling, informed Gary that the horses were ranging about ten miles to the east of Johnnywater, and that they were watering at a small spring called Deer Lick. It occurred to Gary that he might be able to hire these Indians to run in the horses so that he could have a saddle horse at least and be less at the mercy of chance. With a horse he could get out of the country without Monty and the Ford, if worst came to worst.