lf or
what he did he had no idea. When he returned Warren was sitting before
the campfire, and once more he appeared composed. He spoke, and his
voice had a deeper note; but otherwise he seemed as usual.

They packed the burros and faced the north together.

Cameron experienced a singular exaltation. He had lightened his
comrade's burden. Wonderfully it came to him that he had also
lightened his own. From that hour it was not torment to think of Nell.
Walking with his comrade through the silent places, lying beside him
under the serene luminous light of the stars, Cameron began to feel the
haunting presence of invisible things that were real to him--phantoms
whispering peace. In the moan of the cool wind, in the silken seep of
sifting sand, in the distant rumble of a slipping ledge, in the faint
rush of a shooting star he heard these phantoms of peace coming with
whispers of the long pain of men at the last made endurable. Even in
the white noonday, under the burning sun, these phantoms came to be
real to him. In the dead silence of the midnight hours he heard them
breathing nearer on the desert wind--nature's voices of motherhood,
whispers of God, peace in the solitude.

IV

There came a morning when the sun shone angry and red through a dull,
smoky haze.

"We're in for sandstorms," said Cameron.

They had scarcely covered a mile when a desert-wide, moaning, yellow
wall of flying sand swooped down upon them. Seeking shelter in the lee
of a rock, they waited, hoping the storm was only a squall, such as
frequently whipped across the open places. The moan increased to a
roar, and the dull red slowly dimmed, to disappear in the yellow pall,
and the air grew thick and dark. Warren slipped the packs from the
burros. Cameron feared the sandstorms had arrived some weeks ahead of
their usual season.

The men covered their heads and patiently waited. The long hours
dragged, and the storm increased in fury. Cameron and Warren wet
scarfs with water from their canteens, and bound them round their
faces, and then covered their heads. The steady, hollow bellow of
flying sand went on. It flew so thickly that enough sifted down under
the shelving rock to weight the blankets and almost bury the men. They
were frequently compelled to shake off the sand to keep from being
borne to the ground. And it was necessary to keep digging out the
packs. The floor of their shelter gradually rose higher and higher.
The