ement, threw a jet of water on her foot.
He moved back from her and said, "I like the Indian name best."

"It is pretty," and in a lower key, as though trying its sound, she
repeated softly, "_L'eau Courante_, Running Water."

"It's something clear and strong, sometimes shallow and then again
deeper than you can guess. And when there's anything in the way, it
gathers all its strength and sweeps over it. It's a mighty force. You
have to be stronger than it is--and more cunning too--to stop it in the
way it wants to go."

Above their heads the sky glowed in red bars, but down in the stream's
hollow the dusk had come, cool and gray. She was suddenly aware of it,
noticed the diminished light, and the thickening purplish tones that
had robbed the trees and rocks of color. Her warm vitality was invaded
by chill that crept inward and touched her spirit with an eerie dread.
She turned quickly and ran through the bushes calling back to him, "I
must hurry and get supper. They'll be waiting. Bring the pail."

Courant followed slowly, watching her as she climbed the bank.

CHAPTER II

For some days their route followed the river, then they would leave it
and strike due west, making marches from spring to spring. The country
was as arid as the face of a dead planet, save where the water's course
was marked by a line of green. Here and there the sage was broken by
bare spaces where the alkali cropped out in a white encrusting. Low
mountains edged up about the horizon, thrusting out pointed scarps like
capes protruding into slumbrous, gray-green seas. These capes were
objects upon which they could fix their eyes, goals to reach and pass.
In the blank monotony they offered an interest, something to strive
for, something that marked an advance. The mountains never seemed to
retreat or come nearer. They encircled the plain in a crumpled wall,
the same day after day, a low girdle of volcanic shapes, cleft with
moving shadows.

The sun was the sun of August. It reeled across a sky paled by its
ardor, at midday seeming to pause and hang vindictive over the little
caravan. Under its fury all color left the blanched earth, all shadows
shrunk away to nothing. The train alone, as if in desperate defiance,
showed a black blot beneath the wagon, an inky snake sliding over the
ground under each horse's sweating belly. The air was like a stretched
tissue, strained to the limit of its elasticity, in places parting in
d