the cabin burdened our clothes, spoiled our food and
blinded our eyes. Wind, snow, sleet and rainstorms are discomforting
enough under trying circumstances; but all combined, they are nothing
to the choking stinging, blinding sandstorm.

"Shore it'll let up by sundown," averred Jim. And sure enough the roar
died away about five o'clock, the wind abated and the sand settled.

Just before supper, a knock sounded heavily o the cabin door. Jim
opened it to admit one of Emmett's sons and a very tall man whom none
of us knew. He was a sand-man. All that was not sand seemed a space or
two of corduroy, a big bone-handled knife, a prominent square jaw and
bronze cheek and flashing eyes.

"Get down--get down, an' come in, stranger, said Frank cordially.

"How do you do, sir," said Jones.

"Colonel Jones, I've been on your trail for twelve days," announced the
stranger, with a grim smile. The sand streamed off his coat in little
white streak. Jones appeared to be casting about in his mind.

"I'm Grant Wallace," continued the newcomer. "I missed you at the El
Tovar, at Williams and at Flagstaff, where I was one day behind. Was
half a day late at the Little Colorado, saw your train cross Moncaupie
Wash, and missed you because of the sandstorm there. Saw you from the
other side of the Big Colorado as you rode out from Emmett's along the
red wall. And here I am. We've never met till now, which obviously
isn't my fault."

The Colonel and I fell upon Wallace's neck. Frank manifested his usual
alert excitation, and said: "Well, I guess he won't hang fire on a long
cougar chase." And Jim--slow, careful Jim, dropped a plate with the
exclamation: "Shore it do beat hell!" The hounds sniffed round Wallace,
and welcomed him with vigorous tails.

Supper that night, even if we did grind sand with our teeth, was a
joyous occasion. The biscuits were flaky and light; the bacon fragrant
and crisp. I produced a jar of blackberry jam, which by subtle cunning
I had been able to secrete from the Mormons on that dry desert ride,
and it was greeted with acclamations of pleasure. Wallace, divested of
his sand guise, beamed with the gratification of a hungry man once more
in the presence of friends and food. He made large cavities in Jim's
great pot of potato stew, and caused biscuits to vanish in a way that
would not have shamed a Hindoo magician. The Grand Canyon he dug in my
jar of jam, however, could not have been accomplished by legerdemain.