ere! She must find the
road! She must keep on moving--till the end! Till the end! How
terrible that thought appeared, in such a situation!

She almost ran, straight onward towards the hills. Out of breath very
soon, she walked with all possible haste and eagerness, all the time
looking for the road she had left, which the storm might have wiped
from the desert. She was certain now that the mountains towards which
she was fleeing were away from the Goldite direction.

Once more she changed her course. She realized then that such efforts
as these must soon defeat themselves. At least she must stick to one
direction--go on in a line as straight as possible, till she came to
something! Yet if she chose her direction wrong and went miles away
from anything----

She had to go on. She had to take the chance. She plodded
southwestward doggedly, for perhaps a mile, then halted at something
like a distant sound, and peered towards the shadows of the sunset.

There was nothing to be seen. A hope which had risen for a moment in
her breast, at thought of possible deliverance, sank down in collapse,
and left her more faint than before. The sun was at the very rim of
the world. Its edge began to melt its way downward into all the solid
bulk of mountains. It would soon be gone. Darkness would ensue. The
moon would be very late, if indeed it came at all. Wild animals would
issue from their dens of hiding, to prowl in search of food. Perhaps
the sound she heard had been made by an early night-brute of the
desert, already roving for his prey!

Once more she went on, desperately, almost blindly. To keep on going,
that was the one essential! She had proceeded no more than a few rods,
however, when she heard that sound again--this time more like a shout.

Her heart pounded heavily and rapidly. She shaded her eyes with her
hand, against the last, slanted sun-rays, and fancied she discerned
something, far off there westward, in the purples flung eastward by the
mountains. Then the last bit of all that molten disk of gold
disappeared in the summits, and with its going she beheld a horseman,
riding at a gallop towards herself.

The relief she felt was almost overwhelming--till thoughts of such an
encounter came to modify her joy. She was only an unprotected
girl--yet--she had no appearance of a woman! This must be her
safeguard, should this man now approaching prove some rough, lawless
being of the mines.

She