after a while any of them. Shefford did not understand himself, but
he fought his natural instinctive reluctance to meet obstacles, peril,
suffering.

He traced the white-bordered little stream that made the pool in the
corral, and when he came to where it oozed out of the sand under the
bluff he decided that was not the spring which had made Kayenta
famous. Presently down below the trading-post he saw a trough from
which burros were drinking. Here he found the spring, a deep well
of eddying water walled in by stones, and the overflow made a shallow
stream meandering away between its borders of alkali, like a crust of
salt. Shefford tasted the water. It bit, but it was good.

Shefford had no trouble in making friends with the lazy sleepy-eyed
burros. They let him pull their long ears and rub their noses, but
the mustangs standing around were unapproachable. They had wild eyes;
they raised long ears and looked vicious. He let them alone.

Evidently this trading-post was a great deal busier than Red Lake.
Shefford counted a dozen Indians lounging outside, and there were
others riding away. Big wagons told how the bags of wool were
transported out of the wilds and how supplies were brought in. A
wide, hard-packed road led off to the east, and another, not so
clearly defined, wound away to the north. And Indian trails streaked
off in all directions.

Shefford discovered, however, when he had walked off a mile or so
across the valley to lose sight of the post, that the feeling of
wildness and loneliness returned to him. It was a wonderful country.
It held something for him besides the possible rescue of an imprisoned