e hot smoke would merely dry
out further his already dry mouth.

He lay down in what shade he could find and estimated very carefully
the amount of water in his canteen. He weighed the vessel in his hand;
he unscrewed the top and held it so as to look into it.

'I've got about three cupfuls,' he told himself.

Again he studied his map. Again he ate sparingly and thereafter took a
sip of water. He screwed the top on quickly and tightly, jealous even
of a drop which might evaporate in this sponge-air. He stood up,
knowing that he must not loiter. For each second his thirst would
increase as the arid air took the moisture forth through the pores of
his body. Before he had moved a step forward he saw a man coming
toward him. He laughed outright, a laugh of suddenly relieved nerves
which had been very tense. That man would have water and would know
where other water was to be found.

The man came neither from the direction of Quigley nor yet of Desert
Valley. Rather he was coming in from the north, would cut Howard's
trail almost at right angles. He was on foot. Howard wondered at
that. Further, the man had a strange way of walking. He was half
naked and about his head a dark cloth was tied. He trotted a few
steps, seemed to hesitate and balance, he came on head down. Something
seemed to get in the way of his feet; he stumbled, caught himself,
stumbled a second time and fell on his face. He got to his hands and
knees, slowly rose to his feet and came on, walking crazily. Then
Howard understood. The man was an Indian or a half-breed and he was
dying of thirst.

Chapter XIII

A Son of the Solitudes

Wonderingly Howard watched the man come on. For a moment he believed
that the new-comer had gone both mad and blind. For the roving eyes
were terrible to look into, black pools of misery, and the mouth was
distended and the stumbling feet did not turn aside for scrub-brush or
rock. From the waist up the gaunt coppery body was naked; of a ragged
pair of overalls held up by a rawhide thong one leg was gone; the feet
were bare.

'Hey there, _companero_,' called Howard. 'Where are you going?'

It was no longer a question of breed or Indian now. Despite the grime
that made a mask over the face the features were unmistakably those of
a pure-bred Hopi; the shape of the body that of the desert Indian. He
had the small shoulders, the thin arms and the powerful iron legs of
his people. He was passin