“Well, _I’m_ going to, now!--on foot, too!” said Scotty truculently, his Scotch dander rising. “It’s only about three miles back to the crater where we shot the antelope and I left my canteen. We’ll walk. Suppose Sid followed our trail there and got ambushed by some wandering Yaquis? You know how they hate the Mexicans. All whites look alike to them.” “Apache!” grunted Niltci stolidly. “All right; Apache, then!” conceded Scotty. “Sid’s in trouble with Indians somehow, and Blaze managed to get away and get here, with that arrow in him. Niltci can stay here and look after him and the horses. As for me, I can’t get back any too quick!” declared Scotty, with the vibrant sympathy of youth in his tones. “Here, Ruler!” “Hol’ on thar, Scotty! Yore fixin’ to miss three bull’s-eyes in a row, thar, son. Of co’se I’m goin’, ef you are; so we’ll sorter git organized, fust. Whar’s that rucksack? We-all mought be gone three days, an’ Sid he’ll mebbe want medicines an’ bandages. By rights I ought to take Niltci and leave you hyar, Scotty, seein’ as this is Injun doin’s.” But Scotty was obdurate. Start he would, that night, and, as some one had to stay with Blaze and the horses, he insisted on it being Niltci. That didn’t suit Big John, for in a raw iron land like this the Indian boy was worth a dozen Scottys to him. The row gathered way, but you might as well argue with one of the lava boulders around Papago Tanks as try to convince a Scotchman! “Wall, s’pose you and Niltci do this-yer pasear, then? An’ I’ll stay,” said Big John, testily, by way of settling it. “Mind you don’t go further’n that crater, though, an’ then come back an’ report.” There being no further objections, Niltci and Scotty soon set off into the night, leading Ruler on a slip leash. Overhead swung the brilliant stars of an Arizona night, a glory of soft light in which crater cones, rugged lava pressure ridges and stunted saguarros sticking up out of the rocks showed dimly. Behind them the grand range of Pinacate rose gloomy and majestic, the eternal cloud of sulphur vapor around its summit blotting out a whole section of the star canopy to the south. Niltci led on noiselessly, picking his way by eyesight that was as good as a cat’s in the dark. They passed white smoke trees, ghostly as clouds, in the darkness, growing in company with white brittle bushes out of dry crannies in the lava that could hardly support a cactus. An hour later they were toiling up the steeps of the crater once more. So far, not even a whine of discovery had come from Ruler. Big John had given them the hobbles of Sid’s pinto, to show the scent to the dog when the right time came to try to make him understand what was wanted. But Niltci himself knew the pinto’s tracks by some obscure difference in the hoof-mark, and he assured Scotty that so far not a sign of Sid’s horse had they come upon.