They don't care to have no white
men pokin' round in their country; but I'll bet a hat we find a
camp there."
Onward they rode toward the little spot of green. Sometimes
it was in sight and again as they approached higher
ground, or wound through gullies and ravines it was lost to
their sight; but always they kept it as their goal. The trail they
were upon led to it--of that there could be no longer the
slightest doubt. And as they rode with their destination in
view black, beady eyes looked down upon them from the very
green oasis toward which they urged their ponies--tiring now
from the climb.
A lithe, brown body lay stretched comfortably upon a bed
of grasses at the edge of a little rise of ground beneath which
the riders must pass before they came to the cluster of huts
which squatted in a tiny natural park at the foot of the main
peak. Far above the watcher a spring of clear, pure water
bubbled out of the mountain-side, and running downward
formed little pools among the rocks which held it. And with
this water the Pimans irrigated their small fields before it sank
from sight again into the earth just below their village. Beside
the brown body lay a long rifle. The man's eyes watched,
unblinking, the two specks far below him whom he knew
and had known for an hour were gringos.
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