Brower ran to my horse--a fool proceeding, especially for an experienced
horseman--and jerked loose the tie rope. Badger is a good reliable cow
horse, but he's not a million years old, and he's got some natural
equine suspicions. I kind of lay a good deal of it to that fool
hard-boiled hat. At any rate, he snorted and sagged back on the rope,
hit a yucca point, whirled and made off. Artie was game. He hung on
until he was drug into a bunch of _chollas_, and then he had to let go.
Badger departed into the distance, tail up and snorting.

"Well, you've done it now!" I observed to Brower, who, crying with
nervous rage and chagrin, and undoubtedly considerably stuck up with
_cholla_ spines, was crawling to his feet.

"Can't we catch him? Won't he stop?" asked Miss Emory. "If he gets to
the ranch, won't they look for you?"

"He's one of my range ponies: he won't stop short of the Gila."

I cast over the chances in my mind, weighing my knowledge of the country
against the probabilities of search. The proportion was small. Most of
my riding experience had been farther north and to the west. Such
obvious hole-ups as the one I had suggested--the Bat-eye Tunnel--were of
course familiar to our pursuers. My indecision must have seemed long,
for the girl broke in anxiously on my meditations.

"Oughtn't we to be moving?"

"As well here as anywhere," I replied. "We are under good cover; and
afoot we could not much better ourselves as against mounted men. We must
hide."