That had been a warm and also a very busy day at Santa Lucia Ranch. It began, like other days, with an early breakfast for all who awoke under the roof of the hacienda, and everybody had conjectures to make, of course, as to the whereabouts and doings of Cal and his father and the Apache-hunting expedition.

Mrs. Evans and Vic did not care for a horseback ride. In fact, Vic said she did not care much for anything. About the middle of the forenoon, however, two hammocks that swung under the awning in front of the veranda became suddenly empty.

There came a great shouting and whip-cracking out upon the prairie. It sounded along the well-marked old wagon-road which came down from the north. Whole army trains had travelled that road from time to time, and now a great tilted wagon, drawn by six mules and followed by four more, came rolling smoothly in the deep old ruts.

There was a cowboy ready to open the gate and let in the wagon. News of its coming was already in the house, and every soul hurried out to welcome it.

"Sure, and it's glad I am that it's come," said Norah McLory. "There wasn't coffee to last the wake, let alone sugar."The beauty of that wagon was all in its cargo. It belonged to Colonel Evans, and it brought supplies all the way down from Santa FÉ. The unloading and investigation of the things under the ample tilt was an affair of fun and excitement and surprises worth a whole week of shopping in the city.

Full orders had been sent by that six-mule express, for such a trip was costly and could not be afforded too frequently; but even Mrs. Evans had not been permitted to examine all the lists of goods before they went, and Vic knew almost nothing about them. It was, therefore, something like a tremendous Christmas morning coming in June.

The groceries, both as to assortment and quantity, delighted the very heart of Norah McLory. There were cloths and clothing for all the needs of Santa Lucia. One whole packing-case was marked as belonging especially to Mrs. Evans, but it might almost as well have been directed to Vic. The next was smaller and had no name upon it, but when it was opened it compelled Vic to exclaim, again and again: "How I do wish Cal were here! What won't he say when he gets home!"

However that might be, Cal heard Ping's arrow whiz past him just a little before Vic laid down his new breech-loading double-barrelled shotgun and began to admire his neckties, his pocket-knife, compass, and a lot of other treasures.

The miscellaneous cargo of the tilted wagon had cost the price obtained for a goodly number of horned cattle. The value of two fine mules had been expended upon another kind of supplies.

There was no post-office at or near Santa Lucia, and letters found their way there as best they might, at long intervals. Newspapers came in like manner, if they came at all, but now the tilt of that wagon had covered a very large amount of news. Some of it was beginning to get a little old in the rest of the world, for there were several files of well-known Eastern weekly journals, three months in length. Illustrated journals were there, and magazines, for young and old. The remainder of those mules had gone for books. One serious element of the loneliness Vic had complained of in her ranch life vanished at once.

"I've loads of good company now," she said, after dinner, as she began at last to swing in one of the hammocks.

A stack of printed matter lay on the ground beside her, and the thin, wide pamphlet in her hand emphasized her declaration: "I always want to see all the pictures first."

Mrs. Evans was in the other hammock. She had finished some letters before dinner, and now she was at work with the newspapers, trying to find out what great things had happened in the world since it had been heard from at Santa Lucia.

The day died slowly away, as it always will in June. The pictures were looked at, the news was read, the books were turned over, and if the day had not been so very warm more might have been done with the other contents of the tilted wagon. Even Norah McLory put away the liberal provision made for her department, and sat down to think of it.

"They'll not milt away," she said, "but that's more'n I can prove about mesilf. Injins is fond of sugar, and there's two barrels of it here now. Oh, the villains."

Vic stood out beyond the awning and watched the sun go down over the cloudlike tops of the western mountains.

"What are you thinking of, Vic?" asked her mother, from under the awning.

"Why, mother, Cal and father are somewhere away out there. They're pretty near the Sierra, maybe. I was wondering in what sort of a camp Cal had eaten his supper."

Cal was not in any camp, and he had not eaten any supper. He did not ride Dick uselessly the remainder of that hot afternoon. At first he took long rests, and then he dismounted altogether and walked. The red mustang needed no leading, but seemed to feel better when his human company was close beside him, with a hand upon the bridle. He was evidently suffering from thirst rather than from fatigue, and so was his master. Every now and then any path they happened to be in led out into barren reaches of sand and gravel, on any side of which they were at liberty to choose among several avenues, and this was one of the treacherous puzzles of the chaparral. Cal did not know that the red men who had threaded that maze before him had left marks of their own upon the trunks of the mesquit scrubs. He could not have read, if he had known, for he was worse off than a foreigner in a strange, great city.

Twice he saw a wolf go trotting across the vista ahead of him, and once a gang of antelopes dashed away as he came in sight. Somewhere in that terrible tangle there must be human beings, red and white, he knew, and he would almost have welcomed the sight of an Indian when he saw the sun go down.

The moon did not rise, at once, and it was very dark and gloomy, as well as oppressively warm, in the chaparral. Heat came up from the sun-baked sand, and more heat seemed to creep out from among the bushes.

It was a time for Cal to look away down inside of himself and to call out all the courage there was in him.

"I can stand it another day, I know I can," he said to himself, "and I've got it to do. I won't wear out Dick. We must rest all night. It won't be a long night. Soon as it's light we must be moving. It'll be cooler then."

The spot that was somehow selected for his lonely bivouac was near the point where two broad paths crossed each other. Cal could not guess where they came from nor where they went to, nor which of them it would be best for him to travel by in the morning.

He fastened Dick's lariat to a bush, but there was no grass for the faithful mustang to pick upon. He stood in the path a very picture of patience, except that now and then he expressed a little thirsty discontent by a dejected pawing of the hot sand.

Cal had a blanket strapped behind the saddle, and he now spread it and lay down. He even went to sleep, and how long he had slumbered he did not know, when he was awakened by Dick's face close to his own, and a whimpering, low neigh. The red mustang was acting as a sentinel, and had heard something.

"What is it, Dick?" asked Cal, as he sprang to his feet, but the answer came in an unexpected manner.

There was a tramping sound along the other path, and then Cal heard voices. The moon was up, now, and its light fell upon what seemed an endless procession of horses and mules. There were mounted men among them, and Cal knew who they were.

"That's so," he muttered. "Those are the very Apaches we are after. Where can they be going at this time of night?"