sion for snow. You wouldn't think of extending our truce?"

"To-morrow we leave for the coast."

"But you could leave the truce; and I want it ever so much."

She laughed. "Why should one want a truce after the occasion for it
has passed?"

"Sometimes out here in the desert we get away from water. You don't
know, of course, what it is to want water? I lost a trail once in the
Spanish Sinks and for two days I wanted water."

"Dreadful. I have heard of such things. How did you ever find your
way again?"

He hesitated. "Sometimes instinct serves after reason fails. It
wasn't very good water when I reached it, but I did not know about that
for two weeks. It is a curious thing, too--physiologists, I am told,
have some name for the mental condition--but a man that has suffered
once for water will at times suffer intensely for it again, even though
you saturate him with water, drown him in it."

"How very strange; almost incredible, is it not? Have you ever
experienced such a sensation?"

"I have felt it, but never acutely until to-day; that is why I want to
get the truce extended. I dread the next two days."

She looked puzzled. "Mr. Glover, if you have jestingly beguiled me
into real sympathy I shall be angry in earnest."

"You are going to-morrow. How could I jest about it? When you go I
face the desert again. You have come like water into my life--are you
going out of it forever to-morrow? May I never hope to see you
again--or hear from you?" She rose in amazement; he was between her
and the door. "Surely, this is extraordinary, Mr. Glover."

"Only a moment. I shall have days enough of silence. I dread to shock
or anger you. But this is one reason why I tried to keep away from
you--just this--because I-- And you, in unthinking innocence, kept me
from my intent to escape this moment. Your displeasure was hard to
bear, but your kindness has undone me. Believe me or not I did fight,
a gentleman, even though I have fallen, a lover."

The displeasure of her eyes as she faced him was her only reply.
Indeed, he made hardly an effort to support her look and she swept past
him into the car.

The Brock train lay all next day in the Medicine Bend yard. A number
of the party, with horses and guides, rode to the Medicine Springs west
of the town. Glover, buried in drawings and blueprints, was in his
office at the Wickiup all day with Manager Bucks and President Brock.

Late in the afternoon