The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

breechclout and moccasins, padded up to Hilario Trinfan and spoke in the guttural Pima. The mustanger translated.
    “The horses are still there. But there is a camp of two men on the north slope above the canyon. Both men are Anglos. They are armed with rifles and take turns watching.”
    “Can we reach a place from where we can read the brands on the horses?” Drew asked.
    Trinfan questioned the Pima.
    “ Sí. But you can not go there by day. You must go in at dusk, wait out the night, and then see what you could in the early morning. Leave before sunup. Otherwise the watchers may be able to locate you. He says”—Trinfan smiled—“that he could go at high noon and would not be seen. But for a white man is a different matter.”
    “Waste a whole day jus’ waitin’!” Anse protested.
    “ Señor , when one balances time against death, then I would say time is the better choice,” Hilario replied. “But this day will not be wasted. If any watch us—as well as those horses—they will see us about our business and will have no doubt that we hunt wild horses, not stolen ones.”
    So Drew and Anse joined the mustangers’ hunting. To Anse this was something he had done before. Drew remembered that the Texan had been working with just such a hunting party when his family had been wiped out by the Comanches in ’59. But to Drew it was a new experience and he was deeply intrigued by what he saw and the reasons for such action.
    All they sighted of the Pinto’s now thoroughly thirsty band was the stud himself and a black mare—La Bruja—looking down from a vantage point high on a rocky rim. And the hunters did not try to reach them, knowing that all the wild ones would be long gone before they could reach that lookout.
    “This is the fourth day.” Hilario Trinfan sat his buckskin at the water hole, watched Teodoro make careful adjustment of the blankets tied on the bushes. “They will be wild with thirst. Tomorrow the blankets will be taken down. There will be no sign of man here. By mid-afternoon the mares will be ready to fight past the Pinto for water. He can not hold them away. So, they will come and drink—too much. Perhaps he will come, too. If he does”—Trinfan snapped his fingers—“I shall be waiting with a rifle. We take no more chances with that one! Anyway, the mares will be heavy and slow with all the water in their bellies. They can be herded into our trap. Then he will come, sí , that one will come—no one can take his mares from him! He will be mad with rage, too angry to be any longer so cunning. We shall have him then. And there will be no more killings of studs here.”
    At dusk Running Fox slipped down to the camp, but not far enough into the circle of firelight to be sighted by any watcher in the night. Then with Drew and Anse he was off again.
    Within less than a quarter-hour Drew could have laughed wryly at his past satisfaction in his prowess as a scout. Compared to this flitting shadow he was a bush bull crashing through the brush. Anse was better, much better, but even he was far below the standard set by the Pima. The trio climbed, crept, crouched for long moments waiting for Drew knew not what—some sound, some scent, some sight in the night which Running Fox would accept as assurance of temporary safety.
    The Kentuckian had no idea of how long it took them to reach the perch into which they at last pushed. A breastwork of rock was before him; the half circle of a shallow cave cut off a portion of the star-pointed sky above. “Stay—here.” The two words were grunted at them out of the dark. Then nothing…Running Fox had vanished in a way which could make a man believe they had been escorted not by a living Pima, but by a ghost from that long-forgotten race which had left their houses scattered in canyon niches up and down this country.
    It was cold, even though the half cave shielded most of the wind. Drew unrolled the blanket he had carried tied about him, and he squeezed down beside Anse. Their combined body warmth ought to keep them fairly comfortable. Drew doubled his hands inside his coat, wriggling his gloved fingers to keep them from stiffening.
    “Sure do wish there was some way a fella could bring him a little invisible fire along on a trip like this,” Anse commented. “Ain’t goin’ to be what I’d name right out as a comfortable night.”
    “Never seems to be any easy way to do a hard thing,” Drew assented. He hugged himself, his hands