his elbow.

"Better let me give you a drink from the water bag; it's hot and stale;
but it will keep you from seeing water at your feet till we find
another spring."

The old man drank from the neck of the water bag and wiped his mouth
with his hand.

"Queer effect y'r heat has on a North man, Wayland! D' y' know what
A'd be doing if A let myself?"

"Drinking those blue shadows again?"

"No, sir, A'd be babbling and babbling about the sea! A fall asleep as
we ride; an' when A wake from a doze, 'tisn't the sea of sand, 'tis the
sea o' water that's about me! The yellow sea o' York Fort up Hudson
Bay way where A took the boats from Saskatchewan."

Wayland helped him to mount.

"Aren't y' goin' to ride y'rself?"

"No," answered Wayland. "I'm going to keep one horse fresh. Best this
one to-day: then we'll change off and rest yours to-morrow. Those
fellows can't go any faster than we do. This heat will beat them out
if we can't. I'll make those blackguards glad to drink horse-blood."

Then, they moved forward again, Wayland leading on foot, the little
pack mule to the rear, both horses stumbling clumsily, raising clouds
of dust; breathing hard, with heaving flanks.

That night, they halted in broken country . . . more red buttes;
hummocks of red; silt crust trenched by the crumbly cutways of spring
freshets; sand hills billowing to a brick red sky, where the sun hung a
dull blaze. There were tracks of the fleeing drovers having paused for
a rest in the same place. It was a pebble bottom hot and dry. Wayland
scooped under with his Service axe and an ooze of clay water seeped
slowly up forming a brackish pool. He had to hold the little mule back
from fighting the horses for that water. When the animals had drunk,
he filled the water bag with the settlings. Towards three in the
morning, the soft velvet pansy blue Desert dark broke to a sulphur
mist. Wayland saddled horses and mule and wakened the old frontiersman.

"Eh, where's this?" He came to himself heavily. "Wayland, is this
hell-broth of a sulphur stew doin' me? Has y'r Desert got me, Wayland?"

"No, sir, when the Desert gets you, it gets you raving mad with fever.
Chains won't hold you! This soggy sleep is all right. Long as you
sleep, you'll keep your head!"

All the same, the Ranger noticed that the old man ate scarcely any
breakfast. For those people who think that the Ranger's life consists
of an easy all day jog-trot, it would be w