Venters did not confide in Bess the alarming fact that he had seen horses and smoke less than a mile up one of the intersecting canyons.

He did not talk at all.

And long after he had passed this canyon and felt secure once more in the certainty that they had been unobserved he never relaxed his watchfulness.

But he did not walk any more, and he kept the burros at a steady trot.

Night fell before they reached the last water in the Pass and they made camp by starlight.
Venters did not want the burros to stray, so he tied them with long halters in the grass near the spring.