monument. He
resolved to examine it thoroughly on his way home.

Roger rose stiffly. Charley was lying on her face, her head pillowed on
her arm. He moved over and touched her on the shoulder.

"Sorry, Charley," he said, "but we'd better start back."

The girl sat up, slowly. "I wasn't asleep," she said. "I've just been
napping off and on. I can't sleep until I know."

"Perhaps we'll find her safe at home," Roger even managed a smile with
his broken lips.

"Let's not stop to eat again!" exclaimed Charley.

Roger nodded. They reloaded Peter who was well gorged on spring water
and the uncertain looking herbage that grew about its brim.

The trail back was nearly all downward and they had covered it by noon.
Roger told Charley of his strange awakening dream of which he made
light, but when they sighted the little monument in the distance, they
both hurried toward it.

It was there that they found Felicia. On the west side of the monument
the prospector had begun a hole and left it. It was not over a foot in
depth nor over three feet square. Too small to show in the vast levels
of the desert until one was upon it and protected from view from the
mountain because of the monument, tiny as it was, it was not too small
to hold her little body, huddled face downward, arms and legs cramped.

Roger lifted her out and Charley, without a word, fainted. Roger groaned
and covered his eyes for a moment, then he took the pack blanket and
rolled the little body in it and left it while he turned to Charley. A
part of the canteen of water poured gently over her face revived her. As
soon as Roger saw that she was looking at him intelligently he said,
sternly:

"Charley, you've got to brace up until we can get home. You must help me
get you and her back by keeping as much of a grip on yourself as you
can. Remember this is desert noon and we can't temporize. You mount
Peter. We'll leave the pack here. I'll carry Felicia."

He took the shot gun from the pack and fired three shots into the air,
followed by two more; the code that Ernest had suggested after the first
night's hunt had led them to fear the worst. Then he lifted the little
blanketed form across his breast and slowly led the way back to the
ranch. He could not weep. He could not curse. He could only hope,
blindly, that the volcano within him would not burst forth until his
work was done.

Ernest met him a short distance from the ranch house, and took the
little body f