CHAPTER IX
RIDERS IN THE BACKGROUND
LUCE, as explained elsewhere, was sweating and swearing at the heat in Bear Cañon. The sun had crept around so that it shone full into a certain bowlder-strewn defile, and up this sun-baked gash old Applehead was toiling, leading the scrawniest burro which Luck had been able to find in the country. The burro was packed with a prospector's outfit startlingly real in its pathetic meagerness. Old Applehead was picking his way among rocks so hot that he could hardly bear to lay his bare hand upon them, tough as that hand was with years of exposure to heat and cold alike. Beads of perspiration were standing on his face, which was a deep, apoplectic crimson, and little trickles of sweat were dropping off his lower jaw.
He was muttering as he climbed, but the camera fortunately failed to record the language that he used. Now and then he turned and yanked sav-
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