thinking all the time 'What if it were Katherine!' Dear old Rhoda!
Why, Billy, we used to play together as kids! She's slapped my face,
many a time!"

"Probably you deserved it!" answered Billy in an uncertain voice. "By
the limping piper! I'm glad I ain't her financier. I'm most crazy, as
it is!"

The sheep herder woke the sleepers at noon. After a bath at the
spring, and dinner, the trio felt as if reborn. They left the herder
with minute directions as to what he was to do in case he heard of
Rhoda. Then they rode out of the cañon into the burning desert.

And now for several days they lost all clues. They beat up and down
the ranges like tired hunting-dogs, all their efforts fruitless.
Little by little, panic and excitement left them. Even DeWitt realized
that the hunt was to be a long and serious one as Porter told of the
fearful chases the Apaches had led the whites, time and again. He
began to realize that to keep alive in the terrible region through
which the hunt was set he must help the others to conserve their own
and his energies. To this end they ate and slept as regularly as they
could.

Occasionally they met other parties of searchers, but this was only
when they beat to the eastward toward the ranch, for most of the
searchers were now convinced that Kut-le had made toward Mexico and
they were patrolling the border. But Billy insisted that Kut-le was
making for some eerie that he knew and would ensconce himself there for
months, if need be, till the search was given up. Then and then only
would he make for Mexico. And John DeWitt and Jack had come to agree