parched,
our faces blistered, and our eyes smarting before half the distance to
the camp was passed over. The wind, what little there was of it,
seemed but to add waves of heat to the torturing waves of alkali dust.
Ralph, after whimpering a little with the general discomfort, curled
down in his nest and dropped off to sleep, but there was no such
refuge for Jessie and me.

"It's a dreadful thing to be poor!" Jessie exclaimed, at last. There
was a desolate intonation in her voice, and my own spirits drooped.
The horses dropped into a slow walk.

"We shall have one advantage over Mr. Wilson, whatever happens,"
Jessie presently continued.

"How is that?" I inquired. It did not look, at the moment, as if we
were ever destined to have the advantage of any one.

"We shall not find the men at dinner; they will have had their
dinners and gone to work again."

"We may find them at supper," I said, giving Frank an impatient slap
with the lines. The blow was a light one, but it took him by surprise,
and, as was his wont, he stopped and looked back inquiringly,
seemingly anxious to know what was meant by such a proceeding. Jessie
snatched up the whip, and I laughed as I invited Frank to go on.
"Don't strike him, please, Jessie! You don't understand Frank, and he
doesn't understand the meaning of a blow; he thinks, when he is doing
his work faithfully and gets struck, that it must have been an
accident, and he stops to investigate."

"Dear me! How much you know--or think you do--about horses," Jessie
returned wearily. "You're worse than old Joe." She dropped the whip
back into its socket with a petulant gesture. "I'm sorry we started,
Leslie. Here we've been on the road six or eight hours--"

"A little over three hours, Jessie."

"Well, we're not in sight of the promised land yet, and I'm nearly
roasted; I shall just melt if we keep on this way much longer."

"Me is melted; me is all water!" cried Ralph, waking up suddenly, and
immediately giving way to forlorn tears. The tears plowed tiny furrows
through the dust that clung to his moist cheeks, and had settled in
grayish circles underneath his eyes. Jessie looked down at the piteous
little figure and her own ill-temper vanished.

"Come up here and look round, you poor hot little mite!" she
exclaimed, extending one hand and a foot as a sort of impromptu
step-ladder. Ralph clambered up with some difficulty and looked around
as directed, but the prospect did not have an