ert night.

"Somethin' more than the gold an' Barbara back of it all," he muttered
thickly, seeming to lapse into a state of semiconsciousness in which the
burden that was upon his mind took the form of involuntary speech:
"Somethin' big back of it--somethin' they ain't sayin' nothin' about. But
Harlan--he'll take care of--" He paused; then his voice leaped. "Why,
there's Barbara now! Why, honey, I thought--I--why----"

His voice broke, trailing off into incoherence.

After a while Harlan rose to his feet. An hour later he found the red
rock Morgan had spoken of--and with a flaming bunch of mesquite in hand
he searched the vicinity.

In a little depression caused by the heel of a boot he came upon a
glittering object, which he examined in the light of the flaming
mesquite, which he had thrown into the sand after picking up the
glittering object. Kneeling beside the dying flame he discovered that the
glittering trifle he had found was a two- or three-inch section of gold
watch chain of peculiar pattern. He tucked it into a pocket of his
trousers.

Later, he mounted Purgatory and fled into the appalling blackness,
heading westward--the big black horse loping easily.

The first streaks of dawn found Purgatory drinking deeply from the
green-streaked moisture of Kelso's water-hole. And when the sun stuck a
glowing rim over the desert's horizon, to resume his rule over the baked
and blighted land, the big black horse and his rider were traveling
steadily, the only life visible in the wide area of desolation--a moving
blot, an atom behind which was death and the eternal, whispered promise
of death.

CHAPTER III

A GIRL WAITS

Lamo, sprawling on a sun-baked plain perhaps a mile from the edge of the
desert, was one of those towns which owed its existence to the instinct
of men to foregather. It also was indebted for its existence to the greed
of a certain swarthy-faced saloon-keeper named Joel Ladron, who,
anticipating the edict of a certain town marshal of another town that
shall not be mentioned, had piled his effects into a prairie
schooner--building and goods--and had taken the south trail--which would
lead him wherever he wanted to stop.

It had chanced that he had stopped at the present site of Lamo. Ladron
saw a trail winding over the desert, vanishing into the eastern distance;
and he knew that where trails led there were sure to be thirsty men who
would be eager to look upon his wares.

Ladron's h