Big John hee-hawed when the boys told their story; then he jumped up, cackling hideously, grabbed Scotty and booted him all around the camp. “Thar!--Ye pisen li’l, ornery, horned toad!--Gol-darn ye--anyhow!” he guffawed, administering that kicking that Scotty had begged for but Sid had overlooked. “You boys ain’t satisfied with draggin’ me down to a country glowerin’ with petrified lava, but ye got to add to my troubles by ringin’ in a bunch of greasers on me! I tell ye what, Scotty, Pinacate means, ‘Bug-that-stands-on-his-haid,’ in Papago talk, an’ durned ef I don’t stand ye on _yore_ haid, ef we don’t find no mine--an’ we won’t! Up you goes by the heels, I’ll be plumb hornswoggled ef I don’t do it!” “Yeeow--attaboy!” yelled Sid, enthusiastically. “Well, how come? We’ve got to shake off this Apache, first, or he’ll follow us clear down to Pinacate. What’s the word, John?” “My idee’s to do a leetle night ridin’, son--and sorter leave Niltci behind,” grinned Big John enigmatically. “Might’s well be rollin’ yore blankets right now, boys. The jerky’s all done and Niltci’s got it pickled away in a bunch of parfléche skins.” That night the four horses, with Ruler and Blaze on rawhide leaders, pulled out of camp in the silence and gloom after dusk. One horse, Niltci’s flea-bitten mustang, was led riderless, his halter tied to the tail of Sid’s pinto. The white mustang that bore Big John’s long frame started ahead up the trail, a guide barely distinguishable in the faint light of the big Arizona stars. Black and inky buttes, jagged peaks and swelling ridges passed them in a slow procession around the horizon while Big John led on, stopping occasionally on the trail to reassure himself by some blazed stake set up in a cairn of stones or a rude corner of weathered granite rocks marking a turning point in the route. The sun rose over the range of mountains left behind them next morning as the pack train wound down through the last pass in the hills and crossed the railroad track above Tucson. The horses were watered at a little river near the tracks, a river that was bravely hurrying on to its fate, to disappear forever in the thirsty sands of the desert to the north. Bare and rocky hills confronted them across the valley. As they headed into them Sid turned and looked back. A lone rider came galloping after them like a black speck hurrying out of the ranges across the valley. The whole party halted waiting for the rider, whether friend or foe. It was Niltci, the Navaho, flinging along Indian fashion on a pony, his elbows flopping jerkily, his whole body swaying with the loose abandon of a rag tied somehow to the saddle. “Well?” said Sid, as the Navaho boy overtook them, “what’s become of Vasquez’s Apache scout?” Niltci’s bronze face cracked once in a saturnine grin. “_Quien sabe?_” (Who knows!) he shrugged his dusty shoulders. “Me got hees pony!” That was all they ever had out of him about it.