John DeWitt extended his sun-blistered right hand and Billy Porter
clasped it with his brown paw.

Jack Newman cleared his throat.

"Did you give your horse enough rope, John? There is a good lot of
grass close to the cañon wall. Quick as you finish your coffee, old
man, roll in your blanket. We will rest till midnight when the moon
comes up, eh, Billy?"

DeWitt, finally convinced of the good sense and earnestness of his
friends, obeyed. The cañon was still in darkness when Jack shook him
into wakefulness but the mountain peak above was a glorious silver.
Camp was broken quickly and in a short time Billy was leading the way
up the wretched trail. DeWitt's four hours of sleep had helped him.
He could, to some degree, control the feverish anxiety that was
consuming him and he tried to turn his mind from picturing Rhoda's
agonies to castigating himself for leaving her unguarded even though
Kut-le had left the ranch. Before leaving the ranch that afternoon he
had telegraphed and written Rhoda's only living relative, her Aunt
Mary. He had been thankful as he wrote that Rhoda had no mother. He
had so liked the young Indian; there had been such good feeling between
them that he could not yet believe that Porter's surmise was wholly
correct.

"Supposing," he said aloud, "that you are wrong, Porter? Supposing
that she's--she's dying of thirst down there in the desert? You have
no proof of Kut-le's doing it. It's only founded on your Indian hate,
you say yourself."