of the vegetation showed Jean how he was climbing. Scant, low, scraggy
cedars gave place to more numerous, darker, greener, bushier ones,
and these to high, full-foliaged, green-berried trees. Sage and grass
in the open flats grew more luxuriously. Then came the pinyons, and
presently among them the checker-barked junipers. Jean hailed the
first pine tree with a hearty slap on the brown, rugged bark. It was
a small dwarf pine struggling to live. The next one was larger, and
after that came several, and beyond them pines stood up everywhere
above the lower trees. Odor of pine needles mingled with the other
dry smells that made the wind pleasant to Jean. In an hour from the
first line of pines he had ridden beyond the cedars and pinyons into
a slowly thickening and deepening forest. Underbrush appeared scarce
except in ravines, and the ground in open patches held a bleached grass.
Jean's eye roved for sight of squirrels, birds, deer, or any moving
creature. It appeared to be a dry, uninhabited forest. About midday
Jean halted at a pond of surface water, evidently melted snow, and
gave his animals a drink. He saw a few old deer tracks in the mud
and several huge bird tracks new to him which he concluded must have
been made by wild turkeys.

The trail divided at this pond. Jean had no idea which branch he
ought to take. "Reckon it doesn't matter," he muttered, as he was
about to remount. His horse was standing with ears up, looking back
along the trail. Then Jean heard a clip-clop of trotting hoofs,
and presently espied a horseman.

Jean made a pretense of tightening his saddle girths while he peered
over his horse at the approaching rider. All men in this country were
going to be of exceeding interest to Jean Isbel. This man at a distance
rode and looked like all the Arizonians Jean had seen, he had a superb