In a lather of foam the four horses raced in to the deserted Papago village. ’Dobe houses with small blunt chimneys dotted the hillside, but there was not so much as a dog in sight. The well was easy to find--a cube of palings built around a curbstone to keep wandering burros from falling in. It topped a low knoll and had a primitive windlass lowering a bucket into its depths. Ten minutes of sweating activity followed, Sid and Scotty scanning the hills anxiously while each horse drank his fill; the two dogs lapped up a hatful from Big John’s sombrero; then all the canteens were filled. “Now roll yore tails, boys!” urged Big John, flinging himself up on the white mustang. Sid looked to his stirrups and mounted the pinto in a running jump. Blaze and Ruler barked excitedly as the horses clattered up a steep slope that led through a gap in the hills. What _might_ be on the other side of that ridge! From its summit they saw a wide arboreal desert stretching away below, bounded on the west by a red, saw-tooth range of silent mountains. The rays of the setting sun swept across the plain, lighting up each saguarro pole in a spike of vivid green. But over in the hills to the east was coming a long file of riders--the Papagoes! They wound down a defile, galloping at full speed, and a tiny horseman swathed in a flying, striped serapé led them. “Now, fellers, we shore got a race ahead of us!” declared Big John. “We’ll make for Red Tank, out thar in the middle of this valley. See them two little ’dobe houses? That’s her. Head for them ef any of ye git separated.” Across the waste of creosote bushes, choyas and giant cactus that was the Baboquivari Desert galloped the whole party, heading due west toward the red water pond which lies about the center of it. Near its borders Sid could see the two ’dobe Papago houses, still ten miles off, yet they showed as tiny landmarks, even more noticeable than the many-branched giant saguarros which dotted the plain. Beyond them rose the Quijotoa mountains, abrupt and sheer, bare as the ribbed sides of a cliff. They were twenty miles away, but seemed quite neighborly, a refuge to ride for, a place for a stand-off fight if need be. “Gee!--regular movie stuff!” chortled Sid to Scotty as he looked back over his shoulder again. Vasquez and his muster of motley Papagoes were crossing from the east but had not gained a yard on them yet. But they surely would, by the time those ’dobe houses were reached! The horses could keep their distance easily--at first. In time these tireless Indian mustangs would ride them down, sure as death! “We’ll stop and stand ’em off from those ’dobe houses, eh?” answered Scotty. “My old .405 will be the boy then, you bet!”