Through the great gray desert with its freakish effects of erosion a rider had moved steadily in the hours of star-strewn darkness. He had crossed the boundary of that No Man's Land which ran as a neutral strip between Texas and its neighbor and was claimed by each. Since the courts had as yet recognized the rights of neither litigant there was properly no State jurisdiction here. Therefore those at outs with the law fled to this strip and claimed immunity.
In the Panhandle itself law was a variable quantity. Its counties had been laid out and named, but not organized. For judicial purposes they were attached to Wheeler County. Even the Rangers did not pretend to police this district. When they wanted a man they went in and got him.
The rider swung at last from his saddle and dropped the bridle reins to the ground. He crept forward to some long, flat sheep-sheds that bulked dimly in the night shadows. Farther back, he could just make out the ghost of a dwelling-hut. Beyond that, he knew, was a Mexican village of three or four houses. A windmill reared its gaunt frame in the corral. A long trough was supplied by it with water for the sheep.
The night-rider dipped a bucket of water from the tank that fed the trough. He carried it to the gate of the corral and poured it slowly into the fine dust made by the sharp feet of the sheep, mixing the water and dust to a thick paste with the end of an old branding-iron. He brought bucket after bucket of water until he had prepared a bed of smooth mud of the proper consistency.
Before he had quite finished his preparation a dog inside the adobe hut began to bark violently. The interloper slipped over the fence and retreated to the darkness of the barranca.
From the direction of the hut men poured. The one crouching in the chaparral heard voices. He made out a snatch or two of talk in Spanish. The men were explaining to themselves that the dog must have been barking at a wolf or a coyote. Presently they trooped back into the house. Silence fell again over the night.
The man in the chaparral once more crept forward and climbed the fence. He made straight for the entrance of the corral. Carefully he examined the footprints written in the bed of mud he had prepared. One after another he studied them. Some had been crossed out or blotted by subsequent prints, but a few were perfect. One of these he scrutinized for a long time, measuring its dimensions with a tape-line from toe to heel, across the ball of the foot, the instep, and the heel. When at last he straightened up his eyes were shining with satisfaction. He had found what he wanted.