an horses, riderless, saddled, starved for grass and wild for
water, had come in to Forlorn River. They were a part of the horses
belonging to Rojas and his band. Their arrival complicated the mystery
and strengthened convictions of the loss of both pursuers and pursued.
Belding was wont to say that he had worried himself gray over the fate
of his rangers.

Belding's unhappiness could hardly be laid to material loss. He had
been rich and was now poor, but change of fortune such as that could
not have made him unhappy. Something more somber and mysterious and
sad than the loss of Dick Gale and their friends had come into the
lives of his wife and Nell. He dated the time of this change back to a
certain day when Mrs. Belding recognized in the elder Chase an old
schoolmate and a rejected suitor. It took time for slow-thinking
Belding to discover anything wrong in his household, especially as the
fact of the Gales lingering there made Mrs. Belding and Nell, for the
most part, hide their real and deeper feelings. Gradually, however,
Belding had forced on him the fact of some secret cause for grief other
than Gale's loss. He was sure of it when his wife signified her desire
to make a visit to her old home back in Peoria. She did not give many
reasons, but she did show him a letter that had found its way from old
friends. This letter contained news that may or may not have been
authentic; but it was enough, Belding thought, to interest his wife.
An old prospector had returned to Peoria, and he had told relatives of
meeting Robert Burton at the Sonoyta Oasis fifteen years before, and
that Burton had gone into the desert never to return. To Belding this
was no surprise, for he had heard that before his marriage. There
appeared to have been no doubts as to the death of his wife's first
husband. The singular thing was that both Nell's father and
grandfather had been lost somewhere in the Sonora Desert.

Belding did not oppose his wife's desire to visit her old home. He
thought it would be a wholesome trip for her, and did all in his power
to persuade Nell to accompany her. But Nell would not go.

It was after Mrs. Belding's departure that Belding discovered in Nell a
condition of mind that amazed and distressed him. She had suddenly
become strangely wretched, so that she could not conceal it from even
the Gales, who, of all people, Belding imagined, were the ones to make
Nell proud. She would tell him nothing. Bu