ugh rain seemed forever denied to the desert
valleys. But on the Sunday noon before Rabbit Tail's gang was to arrive,
the impossible happened. Roger and Gustav were eating their monotonous
lunch of corned beef and canned brown bread when a curious roar broke
the desert silence. As the two men looked at each other questioningly,
there was a deafening crash and a huge deluge of water smashed down on
the cook tent. The sun-baked canvas was like a sieve and in a moment
both men were saturated.

"A cloud burst!" exclaimed Roger, grinning fatuously at the delicious
sensation of wet clothing and skin.

"Gott, vat a country!" cried Gustav.

Roger's grin disappeared. "The living tent, by Jove!" Heedless of the
blinding torrent, he dashed to the tent where all the morning he had
been sorting and checking drawings and notes. He stopped in the doorway
appalled. Everything in the tent was dripping. Drawings, instruments,
camera, open trunks and bedding were flooded. The patient work of months
must be done over.

"Hang this infernal desert!" roared Roger. "This is the last straw!"

He stood glowering at the wreckage, water pouring over his head and
shoulders, when, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain ceased. Roger
looked out the door. Every grain of sand, every cactus spine bore a tiny
rainbow. The whole desert floor was a mosaic of opals. The sky was of a
blue too deep, too brilliant for the eye to endure. As Roger stood with
mouth agape he was thrilled by a sensation he had not before
experienced. The desert, ordinarily entirely odorless, gave forth a
scent. Just for a moment a pungent perfume for which he could find no
adjectives swept softly to his nostrils and was gone. Roger stood a
moment longer as if transfixed. Then he smiled and turning into the
tent, he began to repair the damage done.

Promptly at eight o'clock on Monday morning, Roger and Dick, at work on
the Lemon, were greeted by a pleasant

"How! Boss!"

Standing by the corral in various attitudes of ease, all of them smoking
cigarettes, were the members of Rabbit Tail's gang. They were lean,
powerful fellows, most of them young. They were dressed almost with the
similarity of a uniform, black trousers, blue flannel shirts, girdled
with a twist of bright colored silk, a bandanna twisted and tied filet
wise about the head. Most of them wore their black hair waist long, but
there were four men with short hair and Roger wondered if these were not
the machinis