“He may have come down into the crater from the other gap, though,” objected Scotty; “we’ll go down and get my canteen, anyhow.” They climbed down into the vast coliseum of the crater. It was dark as a well down there, and Niltci crept along on all fours, following the pony tracks. He pointed out Blaze’s paw prints as they went. The dog had been here, too, following their party of the afternoon. After a time Scotty gave a yelp of discovery and pounced on a round brown object lying on the sand. “Here’s my canteen, anyhow!” he crowed. “I left it here after we butchered the antelope.” Then a cry of surprise came from him as he stopped dead and held out the canteen to Niltci to examine. It was empty of water and the crooked angle of the spout showed that it had been cracked open. “It was more than half full this afternoon, I’m sure of that!” insisted Scotty, excitedly. “Some one’s been here beside us--but why did he not uncork it, then?” Niltci looked it over keenly. “Dog! Blaze do it. Him chew canteen. Him have come a long way,” was his verdict. He showed Scotty the dog’s tooth-marks and then replaced the canteen where Scotty had picked it up. There the whole story written in the sand was clear. Here Blaze, wild with thirst, had lain down with the canteen under his paws and chewed at it until he had worried the spout solder loose. “Dog heap thirsty! Got arrow back in mountains, me think,” declared Niltci. “Back in the Pass? You’re right! That’s about five miles from here. I’m game to walk it and find out something. First, though, Niltci, we’ll climb up the other gap and trace Blaze out of it. He didn’t come out by the east gap, that’s sure. Sid may have been hunting in some crater to the east of us.” They started up that long slope down which flowed the river of desert vegetation. Their own tracks of the afternoon were here, and Blaze’s, too. The certainty that he had simply followed them out that way and then turned to the south became stronger as they climbed up. It was settled as sure at the summit of the gap, where Blaze’s paw prints showed that he had made the turn around the crater just as they had. Scotty and Niltci stood side by side, holding in Ruler who was whining eagerly now, crazy to go chasing the coyotes which were howling in the desert all around them. The blood-and-scent story of that one which Blaze had routed when he had attempted to bar his path had excited Ruler, and he had got into his doggy mind the idea that coyote was to be the night’s game. Otherwise this whole proceeding was still a mystery to him! Around them under the stars brooded a black and silent land, dead as the surface of the moon, the wide, flat and parched plain of the lava fields stretching away for fifteen miles to the east. Near by rose the jagged edges of the Rainbow Range, ragged saw-teeth which would be red and purple in the daytime. Now that range was barely distinguishable under the faint light of the stars.