stampeding cattle.

“I stood and stared almost stunned and hardly able to believe, even then, that so tragic a disaster had come to us. ‘Lucky,’ I said, ‘are you sure you barred the gate? The yearlings couldn’t get through there any more than through another part of the fence if it were equally secure.’

“I saw at once that my companion was hurt.

“I was sorry that I had asked the question, and I told him so. ‘Lucky,’ I said, with my hand on his shoulder, ‘there’s no one on the entire desert more trustworthy than you are. Of course the cattle got out some other way.’

“‘An’ the way was them gypsies.’ Lucky doggedly kept to his preconceived theory that a band of thieving gypsies were sure to rob us that night.

“It didn’t seem possible to me, nor probable either, but I didn’t tell him so.

“What I did say was. ‘Let’s get a snack to eat, climb Yucca Hill once more and see if there is any trace of the herd.’ Of course it would be impossible for gypsies to drive them very far in the few hours between midnight, when I turned in, and early dawn.

“But Lucky seemed determined to believe the worst. ‘Not if they were headed for the border,’ he replied. ‘They’d be across ’afore sunup easy.’

“I knew that to be true but decided to take an observation from the highest of the Three Sand Hills as soon as possible. Leaving our horses at the bottom we began the ascent. I had the misfortune when half way up to step on an insecure rock, which loosened and sent me sliding to the desert again. Lucky had kept right on and soon reached the top. I heard him shouting as he gestured excitedly. ‘What do you see?’ I called, feeling convinced that it was something which had interested him, nor was I wrong.

“‘It’s a tarnel whopper of a sand cloud and ’tisn’t Mexico way, neither, so we can take hope from that.’

“I had scrambled to his side by that time and stood shading my eyes from the glare of the rising sun. I, too, could see the rapidly moving cloud of sand.

“‘What do you make of it?’ I asked.

“‘Ah reckon it’s our yearlings all right on a stampede. But what’s puzzlin’ me is how a caravan on wheels that’s pulled by mules, as Davie said ’twas, kin go ’long fast enough to keep up with ’em.’

“‘It couldn’t,’ 

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