Jacob Lantz was beside that fire and it was seven miles from the ledge on which Trace Jordan lay wounded.  Jack Sutton was there with him and a half-dozen others.  All were tired and the older men disgusted.  The younger ones found it a welcome relief from range work but all were determined.  Only Jacob Lantz was tasting the bread of bitterness.

For the first time in years he had lost a trail he could not again find.  Jordan had eluded him, either escaping clear out of the country or hiding himself securely.

The trail had simply vanished.  Nor was it possible to say exactly where it had vanished.  Sutton did not believe Jordan had ever mounted the mesa and Hindeman was inclined to agree.  Lantz was positive Jordan had reached the mesa but could not explain why he believed it.  He had seen only two fresh tracks atop the mesa and neither could be identified as those of the hunted man.

Jordan had lost blood, much blood.  Yet he had kept moving and at no time had he failed to use his head.  Such a man was dangerous.

Lantz knew nothing of Jordan but be could read a trail and he knew that Jordan knew wild country and how to cover a trail.  And he used none of the obvious methods.  Nor had he done the same thing twice.

The country through which they moved was wild and broken.  It lay upon the border between New Mexico and Arizona to the north and Sonora and Chihuahua to the south.  Water holes were few and the country south of the border was without population for more than fifty miles into Mexico.

In the past there had been bitter fighting along the border but only Pablo Chavero had lasted against the hard-fighting Sutton-Bayless outfit and then he too had gone down.  Yet if the hunted man were to get aid from any source it could only be that one family.

"Vicente's yellow," Mort Bayless said.

"That girl isn't," Hindeman said.

"We'd see it if she helped him," Joe Sutton argued.  "This country's all wide open."

"Then why don't we see him?"

Lantz ignored the conversation, considering the girl.  She had no love for any gringo, that much he knew.  But most of all she had no love for any Sutton or Bayless.  The question was: would she risk all they had by incurring the Sutton anger?

She might ...