Rabbit, it seems had been pacing along, half asleep in the blistering
heat of midday, among the cactus and the greasewood and those
depressing, yellowish weeds that pretend to be clothing the desert with
verdure, when they are merely emphasizing its barrenness. Starr had
been half asleep too, riding with one leg over the saddle horn to rest
his muscles, and with his hat brim pulled down over his eyebrows to
shade his eyes from the pitiless glare of New Mexico sunlight. Rabbit
might be depended upon to dodge the prairie dog holes and rocks and
dirt hummocks, day or night, waking or sleeping; and since they were
riding cross-country anyway, miles from a trail, and since they were
headed for water, and Rabbit knew as well as Starr just where it was to
be found, Starr held the reins slack in his thumb and finger and let
the horse alone.

That was all right, up to a certain point. Rabbit was a perfectly
dependable little range horse, and sensible beyond most horses. He was
ambling along at his easy little fox-trot that would carry Starr many a
mile in a day, and he had his eyes half shut against the sun glare, and
his nose almost at a level with his knees. I suppose he was dreaming of
cool pastures or something like that, when a rattlesnake, coiled in the
scant shade of a weed, lifted his tail and buzzed as stridently, as
abruptly as thirteen rattles and a button can buzz.

Rabbit had been bitten once when he was a colt and had gone around with
his head swollen up like a barrel for days. He gave a great, horrified
snort, heaved himself straight up in the air, whirled on his hind feet
and went bucking across the scenery like a rodeo outlaw.

Starr did not accompany him any part of the distance. Starr had gone off