head over the gun, making a pretense of giving it a last
inspection, then, surer of himself, leaped to his feet and said gruffly:

"Let's move on. There's no good waiting here."

The other two demurred. Susan rose and walked into the glare sweeping
the way David had gone. Against the pale background she stood out a
vital figure, made up of glowing tints that reached their brightest
note in the heated rose of her cheeks and lips. Her dark head with its
curly crest of hair was defined as if painted on the opaque blue of the
sky. She stood motionless, only her eyes moving as they searched the
distance. All of life that remained in the famished land seemed to
have flowed into her and found a beautified expression in the rich
vitality of her upright form, the flushed bloom of her face. Daddy
John bent to pick up the saddle, and the mountain man, safe from
espial, looked at her with burning eyes.

"David's not in sight," she said. "Do you think we'd better go on?"

"Whether we'd better or not we will," he answered roughly. "Catch up,
Daddy John."

They were accustomed to obeying him like children their master. So
without more parley they pulled up stakes, loaded the wagon, and
started. As Susan fell back to her place at the rear, she called to
Courant:

"We'll go as slowly as we can. We mustn't get too far ahead. David
can't ride hard the way he is now."

The man growled an answer that she did not hear, and without looking at
her took the road.

They made their evening halt by the river. It had dwindled to a
fragile stream which, wandering away into the dryness, would creep
feebly to its sink and there disappear, sucked into secret subways that
no man knew. To-morrow they would start across the desert, where they
could see the road leading straight in a white seam to the west. David
had not come. The mules stood stripped of their harness, the wagon
rested with dropped tongue, the mess chest was open and pans shone in
mingled fire and sunset gleams, but the mysteries of the distance, over
which twilight veils were thickening, gave no sign of him. Daddy John
built up the desert fire as a beacon--a pile of sage that burned like
tinder. It shot high, tossed exultant flames toward the dimmed stars
and sent long jets of light into the encircling darkness. Its wavering
radiance, red and dancing, touched the scattered objects of the camp,
revealing and then losing them as new flame ran along the leaves or