With these reflections over him, the thought of his vengeance against Gabriel Henderson put aside for that hour, Roberto walked on up the road, thinking nothing of the time, sleep a stranger to his eyes. There grew mesquite and screw-bean by the roadside, cactus and chaparral, and grass in bunches that put up tall plumes. Soon Roberto was far beyond sight of the ranchhouse, his eyes on the white road, the weight of his new manhood upon him making him grave.
Roberto was startled out of his meditations by the beat of a horse's feet in the road to the north. Before the rider came in sight around one of the goat-path windings of the highway, Roberto knew that the horse had been ridden hard, and far. He stood in the middle of the road, curious to know who had come from a distance in such pressure, whither he was bound, and the mission that urged him to ride in haste through the night.
The rider halted suddenly when he rounded the turn of the road, seeing his way blocked by a man. He seemed to hesitate for a moment between advance and flight. Roberto, prickling with a keen suspicion that all was not honest with the rider, hailed him.
"Advance!" he said, in commanding voice.
The rider lifted his right hand in signal that he understood, and came forward slowly.
"Can you direct me to the Sprague ranch?" he inquired, in the speech of a common man. Roberto saw that he wore the dress of a vaquero,
