.

"By Jove," he exclaimed, "that's cool! I wonder if he took anything with
him but the peroxide bottle?"

A quick inventory showed nothing missing, and with a sigh Roger returned
to the well.

It was slow work, filling the bucket, clambering out to hoist it, then
down again. But at noon, when the sun shone full into the well, Roger
noticed a sudden darkening of the brown rock at the bottom. He seized a
pick and worked rapidly. Water! Not a gushing spring, but a steady
increase of moisture that, as he dug on, became a trickle, then a slowly
rising pool about his ankles.

No discoverer of a noble river ever felt prouder than Roger as, after he
had hoisted out the bucket and tools, he stood at the well's edge gazing
far down at the dirty pool.

He was standing so, a tall figure, his face streaked with dirt and
sweat but with satisfaction radiating from every line of his thin tanned
face, when, "Hello!" called a man's voice behind him.

Roger turned with a jerk. A little gray-headed man and a little gray
burro were standing by the work tent.

"Perhaps I could get something to eat here," said the stranger.

"Certainly," returned Roger, not too enthusiastically. He did not know
desert hospitality, excepting what he had met at the Preble ranch. The
man turned promptly to the burro.

"I'll take off your pack, Peter, if you see to it that you don't stray."

The burro looked at his master with the gaze of a wise old dog and,
relieved of his pack, moved slowly to the shade of the living tent.
Roger, looking his guest over, from faded overalls and blue flannel
shirt to battered sombrero, led the way into the cook tent.

"Whew!" said the stranger. "Sun's getting higher. Noons are hot. When
did you reach these parts?"

"A couple of weeks ago. My name's Moore,--Roger Moore."

The man nodded. "Mine's Otto von Minden. I'm an engineer. Been in the
desert country ten years."

Roger was moving about, making coffee and slicing bacon. "What are you
doing, prospecting?" he asked.

Von Minden jerked a quick look at Roger from a pair of small brown eyes.
"Yes, I'm prospecting. What are you doing?"

"Experimenting with solar heat. This is the place to get it if this
noon is a promise of more to come."

"Heat!" cried the stranger with sudden excitement. "Heat! God! What I
have known of heat. Blistering, burning, blinding! Nights when the very
star rays scorch and the moon's a caldron of white lava. Ten years of
it, Moore, t