h for him while he did
his other work. I was so innocent and so ignorant that I let him start
me at it.

"In the Colorado river bottoms it was, below Fort Mohave. A group of
fools like me thought to grow alfalfa in the bottom land, and dike the
fields to keep the Colorado out at flood. Covered with arrow-weed, six
and eight feet tall, the land was, when we got there. But the dikes were
finished and some of the folks were beginning to clear the land.

"Otto cut enough arrow weed to put the tent up and then he found that he
must put our bed high on a platform, the rattlesnakes were so thick.
This done, he left me some money and told me to get an Indian to help me
and off he went on one of his prospecting trips. I used to lie at night
staring at the sky and crying with fear, fear of Otto and fear of the
snakes that rattled and whirred all night.

"I found an Indian and he and I cleared about five acres of land and got
the seed in. But the water used to run out of my mouth every minute with
the snake fear. Then one night a rattler got one of our horses and my
fear of what Otto would say if the other was bitten was greater than my
fear of the snakes, and one night, while I watched beside the remaining
horse, I killed a rattler. I waited for him to coil, then as I had seen
the others do, I brought the butt end of an arrow-weed down on the coils
and my fear of snakes was gone.

"Food was hard to get. There were only eight of us there. And as it got
hot, some of them left. By the time we were expecting the river to rise
in spring flood, there were only three fools in the colony. And I seldom
saw the other two. There was a hundred acres of arrow-weed between them
and me. My Indian left, after the crop came up. So I was all alone when
the flood came. The first day my dikes began to leak. For eighteen hours
I toted adobe to mend them with. When my strength gave out the water was
two feet deep over my little field. My baby came that night, much too
soon. I'd have died just as it did, if my Indian with a squaw hadn't
happened back to beg for food. They took me over to the California side
in their flat boat, and I never went back to the ranch again, though
Otto tried to make me."

There was silence for a time. Mrs. von Minden, eyes still closed, seemed
to be concentrating. Suddenly Charley leaned forward to say a little
huskily,

"But why are you going back to him, Mrs. von Minden?"

"I have a message for him from the Yogis."