ry of that day has never been wholly clear.
Sodden with weariness, dazzled and muddled by the savage sun-glare, he
followed, with eyes fixed, the rhythmically, monotonously moving feet
of his leader, through an interminable desert of soft, clogging sand;
a desert which dropped away into parched arroyos, and rose to scorched
mesas whereon fierce cacti thrust at him with thorns and spikes; a
desert dead and mummified in the dreadful heat; a lifeless Inferno
wherein moved neither beast, bird nor insect. He remembers, dimly, lying
as he fell, when the indefatigable captain called a halt, and being
wakened in the chill breeze of evening, to see a wall of mountains
blocking the advance. Food brought him to his normal self again, and in
the crisp air of night he set his face to the task of climbing. Severe
as this was upon his unaccustomed muscles, the firm rocks were still
a welcome relief after the racking looseness of sand that interminably
sank away from foothold. At midnight the wearied pursuers dropped
down from a high plateau to a narrow arroyo. Here again was sand.
Fortunately, this time, for in it footprints stood out clear,
illuminated by the white moonlight. They led direct to a side barranca.
There the pursuers found the camp. It was deserted.

Like a hound on the trail, Captain Funcke cast about him.

"Here's where they came in. No--yes--this is it. Confound the
cross-tracks!.. Here one of them cuts across the ridge to the tenaja for
water.

"Wait!... What's this? Coyote trail? Yes, but... Trail brushed over, by
thunder! They didn't do it carefully enough... Straight for the rocky
mesa.... That's it! They made their sneak while Hoff was asleep,
probably covering trail behind them, and struck out for the inside
desert route to the Tenaja Poquita." He took a quick look about the camp
and picked up an empty canteen. "Of course, they wouldn't leave him any
water."

"Then he's gone to hunt it," suggested Average Jones. "Which way?"

"You can't tell which way a tenderfoot will go," said the hunter
philosophically. "If he had any savvy at all he'd follow the old beaten
track around by the arroyo to the water-hole. We'll try it."

On the way, Average Jones noticed his companion stop frequently to
examine the sand for something which he evidently didn't find.

"These are fresh footsteps we're following, aren't they?" he asked.

"Yes. It isn't that. He went this way all right. But the tenaja's gone
dry."

"How ca