CHAPTER I

"CROOKED AS A DOG'S HIND LAIG"


It was a land of splintered peaks, of deep, dry gorges, of barren mesas
burnt by the suns of a million torrid summers. The normal condition of it
was warfare. Life here had to protect itself with a tough, callous rind,
to attack with a swift, deadly sting. Only the fit survived.

But moonlight had magically touched the hot, wrinkled earth with a fairy
godmother's wand. It was bathed in a weird, mysterious beauty. Into the
crotches of the hills lakes of wondrous color had been poured at sunset.
The crests had flamed with crowns of glory, the cañons become deep pools
of blue and purple shadow. Blurred by kindly darkness, the gaunt ridges
had softened to pastels of violet and bony mountains to splendid
sentinels keeping watch over a gulf of starlit space.

Around the camp-fire the drivers of the trail herd squatted on their
heels or lay sprawled at indolent ease. The glow of the leaping flames
from the twisted mesquite lit their lean faces, tanned to bronzed health
by the beat of an untempered sun and the sweep of parched winds. Most of
them were still young, scarcely out of their boyhood; a few had reached
maturity. But all were products of the desert. The high-heeled boots, the
leather chaps, the kerchiefs knotted round the neck, were worn at its
insistence. Upon every line of their features, every shade of their
thought, it had stamped its brand indelibly.

The talk was frank and elemental. It had the crisp crackle that goes with