"I reckon it'll take all of that," growled the constable. "You can have all you want of his game, Saunders,--I'm through."
Out by the water-hole, Overland turned to Winthrop. "I'm glad you enjoyed the performance," he said, grinning. "We've opened the pot and the best man rakes her down. She's desert law from now to the finish."
Gaunt, unshaven, weary, Winthrop rested on the crest of the northern range. Overland, looking for water, toiled on down the slope with the little burro. Winthrop rose stiffly and shuffled down the rocks. Near the foot of the range he saw the burro just disappearing round a bend in a cañon. When he came up with Overland, the tramp had a fire going and had pitched the tent. The cañon opened out to a level green meadow, through which ran a small stream. They had come a long day's journey from the water-hole on the other side of the range. They were safe from ordinary pursuit. That evening beside the fire, Overland Red told again the story of the dead prospector, the gold, and the buried papers. In his troubled slumbers the Easterner dreamed of pacing along the track counting the ties, and eventually digging in the sand, digging until his very soul ached with the futility of his labor. Waking, he never lost faith in the certainty of finding the place. He now knew the tramp well enough to appreciate that the other had not risked his own life and nearly killed one of his pursuers through sheer bravado, or fear, or personal hatred. Something more potent was beneath the tramp's motives--some incentive that was almost a religion. So far, Winthrop was correct. He erred, however, in supposing Overland to be obsessed with a mania for gold for its own sake. The erstwhile sheriff of Abilene had dreamed a dream about an adopted waif and a beautiful young girl. The dream was big. Its fulfillment would require much money. There was more of the poet in Overland Red than his best friend had ever imagined.
Three days they rested in the wild seclusion of the cañon. The silence, the solemnity of the place, fascinated Winthrop. The tiny stream, cold and clear, the vegetation, in a region otherwise barren-gray and burning,--the arid Mojave with its blistering heat, the trees, the painted rocks,--ochre, copper, bronze, red, gray, and dim lilac in the distances,--the gracious shade, the little burro, half ludicrous, half pathetic in its stolid acceptance of circumstances,--all had a charm for him that soothed and satisfied his restlessness.