irsty,
and he went off to find something wetter than water to drink, and while
he was gone the once-a-day train also went off through the desert.
Lite saw the last pair of wheels it owned go clipping over the switch,
and he stood in the middle of the track and swore. Then he went to the
telegraph office and found out that a freight left for Nogales in ten
minutes. He hunted up the conductor and did things to his bank roll,
and afterwards climbed into the caboose on the sidetrack. Lite has
been so careful to keep in the background, through all these chapters,
that it seems a shame to tell on him now. But I am going to say that,
little as Jean suspected it, he had been quite as interested in finding
Art Osgood as had she herself. When he saw her pass through the gate
to the train, in Los Angeles, that was his first intimation that she
was going to Nogales; so he had stayed in the chair car out of sight.
But it just shows how great minds run in the same channel; and how,
without suspecting one another, these two started at the same time upon
the same quest.

Jean stared out over the barrenness that was not like the barrenness of
Montana, and tried not to think that perhaps Art Osgood had by this
time drifted on into obscurity. Still, if he had drifted on, surely
she could trace him, since he had been serving on the staff of a
general and should therefore be pretty well known. What she really
hated most to think of was the possibility that he might have been
killed. They did get killed, sometimes, down there where there was so
much fighting going on all the time.

When the shadows of the giant cactus stretched mutilated hands across
the desert sand, and she believed that Nogales was near, Jean carried
her suit-case to the cramped dressing-room and took out her six-shooter
and buckled it around her. Then she pulled her coat down over it with
a good deal of twisting and turning before the dirty mirror to see that
it looked all right, and not in the least as though a perfect lady was
packing a gun.

She went back and dipped fastidious fingers into the box of chocolates,
and settled herself to nibble candy and wait for what might come. She
felt very calm and self-possessed and sure of herself. Her only fear
was that Art Osgood might have been killed, and his lips closed for all
time. So they rattled away through the barrenness and drew near to
Nogales.

Casa del Sonora, whither she went, was an old, two-story st