hat try as
he would to think, clearly, he could do nothing but wonder, impatiently,
when the moon would rise and to fight down the picture that rose
constantly of tiny Felicia wandering in an endless desert. Measuring the
depth of his love for the child by the immensity of his fear, he was
astounded by its greatness.

CHAPTER XIII

THE GREAT DIVIDE

The moon appeared at last and suddenly all the desert lay before them
like molten silver. They rose, stiffly, and Charley helped Roger to
replace the little pack on Peter. Roger led, Peter followed and Charley
brought up in the rear. For hours, they toiled slowly up into the range,
flashing their "bugs" into the shadows, stopping now and again to go
over rock heap or cactus clump carefully, then on again, neither of them
speaking, even to Peter, except to call at irregular intervals Felicia's
name.

Dawn found them high in the range, in a little canyon, sweet with a tiny
spring about which grew mesquite and bear grass. The black ashes of old
fires were there, but nothing else. Roger broke the silence of hours:

"We're both going to get a sleep here, then I'm going to take you home.
We're way out of the reach of gun sound. They might have found her, you
know."

They stood staring about them for a moment and listening. The
unutterable silence of the desert was about them. Roger, eyes bloodshot,
face unshaven, lips cracked, turned to Charley whose great eyes were
sunk in her head, her lip colorless and drawn.

"Come," he said. "I'll cook the bacon and you unpack the rest of the
grub. We simply haven't strength to get home without rest and food."

Charley had the remainder of the food ready for Roger when the bacon was
cooked. They ate in silence, then Charley lay down on the pack blanket
while Roger stretched out in a drift of sand beyond the spring. In utter
weariness they both slept, unmindful of danger from snakes or vermin.

It was mid-morning when Roger woke. He sat up with a start and a sudden
clear picture in his eyes of a spot in the desert where he had not
searched. About a mile from the ranch and perhaps an eighth of a mile
west of the trail at the base of the range was a little stone monument.
Roger had observed it but it was too small to shelter even Felicia's
small frame in its shadows, so he had not troubled to make a close
observation of the flat desert round about it. The picture which had
awakened him was an extraordinarily vivid one of this