while upholding Stevens in the saddle.

The difficulty most persistent was in keeping the horses in a
walk. They were used to a trot, and that kind of gait would not
do for Stevens. The red died out of the west; a pale afterglow
prevailed for a while; darkness set in; then the broad expanse
of blue darkened and the stars brightened. After a while
Stevens ceased talking and drooped in his saddle. Duane kept
the horses going, however, and the slow hours wore away. Duane
thought the quiet night would never break to dawn, that there
was no end to the melancholy, brooding plain. But at length a
grayness blotted out the stars and mantled the level of
mesquite and cactus.

Dawn caught the fugitives at a green camping-site on the bank
of a rocky little stream. Stevens fell a dead weight into
Duane's arms, and one look at the haggard face showed Duane
that the outlaw had taken his last ride. He knew it, too. Yet
that cheerfulness prevailed.

"Buck, my feet are orful tired packin' them heavy boots," he
said, and seemed immensely relieved when Duane had removed
them.

This matter of the outlaw's boots was strange, Duane thought.
He made Stevens as comfortable as possible, then attended to
his own needs. And the outlaw took up the thread of his
conversation where he had left off the night before.

"This trail splits up a ways from here, an' every branch of it