Complete Story. John of the Desert.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue XVI, 15 October 1904, Page 54

Complete Story. John of the Desert.

THE STORY OF A DELUSION.

By

E. S. MOFFAT.

A little white after the sun came up over the hills of Tuniper. one who had lain all wight in the sage-brush, turned in his blanket, and gazed about him. His bed had been a shallow burrow, beneath the white crust of alkali, but now the hot lingers of the sun were searching him (mt, through the straggling bushes, and a, steady drone announced that the Hies and insects had begun their daily stunt.

Shaking the dirt from his faded blanket, he turned to the South, upon his knees. lie crossed himself, and muttered a sing-song prayer. A few yards off. a rivulet, from a sulphur spring in tin- hillside, was bravely fighting its way over the thirsty ground, and there the wanderer knelt and laved his hands. Taking up some of the water he sprinkled it ou his head, meanwhile crossing himself again, lie rose to his feel. Before him, a mile away, the gray expanse of sage ami greasewood melted into a white, rolling sea of sand. It was an endless vista for half the horizon. until, far oft’, a dim. blue line of mountains rose up. and formed, as it were, the other shore. Upon this desert waste, his watery blue eyes, that untilnow had been roving uncertainly in their red sockets, fastened themselves, and grew bright with pleasure. It might have been thought that he w,is smiling, until it was apparent that the. smile could not fade away, for the lips, like the grizzled, gray, hollowed cheeks had lieen scared and cracked by the sun and wind, so that they were drawn crookedly, up on one side, in a perpetual grimace.

From the depths of a tattered shirt tie drew forth a dog-eared diary. While he was clumsily thumbing its lea it opened in bis hand, at the place he sought. But, as his eyes fell upon the writing, it occurred to him that there was littlen eed of reading it again. It had come to him in dreams, and by revelations, piece by piece, and those he already knew; at least, he remembered Unit lie iiad known them yesterday. He remembered, too. that once upon a time lie had fitted it nil together, like some queer puzzle-toy of his childhood. What was simpler, then, than to repeat it aloud, in the same way? But almost, immediately. with the mental vacillation that showed in every movement, he weakened, and lost, courage. His face I witched nervously. Suppose he lost the book! Suppose he found too late that tie had not remembered its directions correctly! No! No! The risk was too great: he must read it again. “And Good Fraday afternoon 3 klock yu shall purify yur Body and yur Soul by the help of the 3 Kings, Melchior, Sharsis and Balthasar. And yu shall wear upon yur Breast a Breastplate of I’arelnuunl. 10 inches wide and 10 inches high. “From 12 to 4 in the afternoon of the 10th .lune yu shall begin yur labor upon tlm Mine of Perpetule Silence on the Other Side of the habitashmi of satan which lieth among the silver sands where there is no water neethcr shall!: thou take any water with thee, for S ArekengeU will! accompany thee. “And thou sluilll begin thy labors by recitin' the lOlst I’saluin. “For thou shall! tred upon the Aps and the Caeilik and shall! be known as John of the Desert and shallt hev meny followers. “And then (lion shalll be happy. “Aimen. Aimen, Aimen. “Pray by night!” The Wanderer straightened up from the smut tell pages, and looked toward the Desert again. His face, whs transfigured. “For thou shallt tred upon the Aps and the Caeilik.” he repeated, in an awed whisper. His voice grew strong with Minis powerful emotion. “Yea, even iu th* very habitation of Satan!” -

He threw back liis head, and in the intensity of his feelings Hung up his gaunt arms, quivering iu their tatters, toward the sky.

The moist, wavering eyes grew dry and fierce. The weak old face, scorched and blackened by years of sun and. winter snow-light, grew grim, with a mighty resolve. Beside himself with joy. at the nearing realization of a life-long promise, he cried the words aloud, hoarsely exultant in his victory. . “And then thou shalt. be happy!” The sun had climbed a little higher, now. A light morning wind brought the odours of cooking across the plain. Beyond the crumbling bank of a “wash.” and on the northern side of the gleaming line of rails that divided in front Tuniper proper, “Denmark” squatted in the alkali and cinders, its dishpans glistening in the early light, the secrets of its dreary backyards in painful publicity. “Naw. not come here! Ah ben tole you wanst, vestiday. Not come here!” The shiny spots on Mrs Christensen’s gaunt, yellow faee. glowed with wrath. The trusty guardian of her larder, she raised a prohibitory, red-knuckled hand. “Ah not got nuddings to eat.” The old man fumbled his hat brim uncertainly. He muttered indistinctly between his puckered lips. With the half-cringing, half wistful look of a homeless dog. he retreated across the ash heaps, dragging after him a small red express waggon, whose ungreased wheels protested shrilly.

The woman watched curiously as he passed from house to house. “Such • foolish!” she muttered. “Vy has he dot wagging? Ah dunno. There he is*/ at dose Pearson’s howis. Dey don’t got nudding, not nudding. dose poor Pear.sons!” '

She strained her eyes. “Veil!” site murmured, in amazement, “Some': peoples iss cresyl Dey bin askit him in!” It was Jim Pearson who had come’ to the door. - -• 4«woi “Yu might be settin down over there, old man,” he said with grave gentleness. “.Set right next til Ettamary. She kin move over some. Thera ain’t much besides coffee and sowbelly, but Sue kin rustle yu some o’ that." «■ Little Etta Mary Pearson picked up her bowl of bread and milk, carefully, In her baby hands, and daintly made room next her, on a rough board resting on two soap boxes. She recognized the visitor instantly, with a birdlike flirt of her golden head,' and a sparkle in her round blue eyes. It was her playmate of the week past. It was the builder of the powerful navy of chips, that bravely navigated the raging ocean out in the sage brush, the wise man from nobody-kuew-w here, who showed her the little gray rabbits, lying in their burrows; who told her why the lizard can shed his tail, and just who' it is the cat-spider hates, ami how many stars there really are. “Hello, Thom!” said Etta Mary, affably. and beat on the table with her spoon, so that her greeting might not be missed. « “H’lo!” answered the old man, bashfully. A covert glance of understanding passed between the two. They were old friends, each of whom knew amt appreciated the other. He slid awkardIv into his seat. The meal proceeded in silence. Jim Pearson drained his'tin cup, amt rising slowly to his feet, went to the door of the house, half of hoards, half tent. He looked thoughtfully out toward the side hills, whither the road to the mining camp of Dellabar, twenty miles away, wound sinuously through the powdery dust of the flats. “I reckon Fl! be movin' Sue,” said he, “We’ve got

to rustle somethin* mighty «inl<len, Jake's beginnin’ to make a howl over iu the store.” "I reckon I’ll try Dellabar again. Mebbc there’s somethin’ there.” .Sue Pearson laid her hand gently on his •rm: “You’re not going by the Playground road, Jim J” she asked apprehensively, “ You ean’t cross that way now. We’ve Only the one horse, remember. Please go by the old road, Jim.” Iler husband nodded gravely, appreciating the force of her advice, for the blistering heat of June lay over Tuniper, and the Devil’s playground was no longer safe for han or beast. He slipped his arm fondly, about her. ’’Sue,”, be said, and at his tone the •woman’s face glowed fgaintly, “ I’ve tried hard for you. Things were agin ■S, back home, and 1 thought we d du a sight better out here. It might hev been all right, tn, if Dellabar hadn’t shut down, beeuz 1 eonld hev freighted steady then. 1 know it don’t look yet as if our luck had come, but still I want yu tu know that I’m a-tryin’—always.” He left her abruptly, as if ashamed of what seemed an unmanly revelation. “I’ll .be leavin’ about eleven,” he said over his shoulder. " Mebbe I’ll take Ettamary. The ride’ll do her gude.” Bue Pearson was still in her doorway, when Mr. Oliver Lee the dealer at the “ Little Gem,” spotless as to linen, and resplendent as to shoes, picked his way gingerly, through the dust toward his breakfast at the Christensen’s. “ Handsome ” Oliver Lee mentally compared Minna Christensen’s stolid face and trustful “ kornblumen” eyes, with this other man’s wife. He raised his hat with an easy grace. He was sorry for Jim, and’ he admired his wife. Hut he quickly saw that the light in her face was not for him, and he went his way, just as bad Billy, ©verton had done, and Tony La France, from Clover Valley, and all of Tuniper, in fact, from time to time. When Etta Mary had surveyed the World from the front door, and found it much the same as yesterday’, she be: thought herself of her playmate. He was sitting on a bench, on the sunny side of the house, pouring over something he held *n his knees. She clambered up beside him, and peered over his shoulder. To her surprise he turned up on her with a dark frown. Snapping the book shut he bid it in his shirt. Etta Mary Pearson was only five, and Etta Mary probably eould not read, but he must take no chanees. "The tenth of June,” the hook said. It must be nearly that by now. He wondered how he would know when the time came, and trembled lest it should pass him, and he not know it. Then he grew cunning. “ What day do you suppose this is J” the Wanderer whispered to the little girt. He would ascertain the date, without awakening her suspicion. Etta Mary rolled her blue orbs reflectively. To-day ith Wednethday,” she announced. “ Make th tun boath, Thon. She pounded his knee, persuadingly. “ Aye, but we had Wednesday last week,” he corrected, with convhieing intensity. Etta Mary looked puzzled. “But we have one too, thith week,” she •sserted, bravely escaping his mental Snare. A shrewd light twinkled in his eye. " But how do you know that this Wednesday isn't last Wednesday ?” he asked, with a triumphant air. “They both have the same name,” Etta Mary began to feel perturbed, How indeed ? It was a terrifying question. " It ithn’t, anyway I” she faltered helplessly, ‘‘l jutht know it ithn’t!” The Wanderer looked warily about him. He bent his gray head close to hers. “ Does site know 7” He nodded toward the tent. Immediately the little girl slid down, and ran inside. She reappeared out of breath, but victorious. "Mamma thays, it ith the ninth of June, so it ith thith Wednethifay, jutht ath 1 tliaid.” she re»U’.vke<]. with a complacent nodding of her sleek head. "Make thum boath, Thon,’’ she; commanded. The Desert Man gazed over her head, with blank, unseeing eyes. It had nearly passed him! Two days more and he would have had to wait another whole year. A year of weary waiting, of fasting and praying! A faint moan escaped his twisted lips. His relief was •c great that it hurt him. Hardly knowing what he did, he put the child away from him. and rising abruptly from the bench, stumbled

■way to search for his tittle waggon. Be found it by the door, where he had left it. Fastening the tongue hastily to his shoulder with a piece of rope, he turned his steps toward Juke Snyder's store, across the railroad tracks, leaving the child wondering over this sudden defection of her ordinarily gentle playmate. She was still sitting thus when he reappeared, a little later, his blanket now’ covering several eans of something that made the little red waggon’s wheels creak even more dismally than before. “Come back to make my boath, Thon?” she asked, with a dazzling smile, and a seductive inclination of her yellow curls. He shook his head gravely, but stopped for a moment. “No; no time now,” the Wanderer muttered hoarsely, his eyes beginning to rove again. “John of the Desert going away now.” "Where you going?” demanded Etta Mary. He smothered a smile in his hand. How crafty these women were! Aye, they had always been so, and once he had suffered, suffered. But he knew them now. "Good-bye,” he faltered, and slowly walked away. "Good bye,” he said over his shoulder. His grizzled face took on its wistful look again. Deceiver though she was, without a doubt, she bad once been a genial friend. "Good-bye, Thon!” said the little girl, gravely slinking a wobbly hand. Then, as he started to walk away, in the brush, toward tlfe West, childlike she ehanged her mind, and ran tumultuously after him. “Where you going?” she demanded panting, and immediately sat down in the shade of a large rabbit laisli in order to discuss the matter comfortably. After much evident perturbation, the old man seated himself under a bush opposite. For some time he surveyed her doubtfully, debating something in his mind. Smoothing out the space between them, until it was level and clean, he look a stick, and drew a rude triangle in the sand. Along its lines he put small pebbles. At each corner fie stuck a forked twig, pregnant with mystery. In the centre he placed a bright red stone, which he drew from his pocket. This done, he fixed his watery eyes upon the one opposite, and raised his voice in a tone of command. “By Aldebaran, and that Greater Star!” he said, crossing himself rapidly. “Aldebrum and the Great Tar,” repeated Etta Mary, vaguely, following his motions with an uncertain hand. “By the three Kings, and my hope of Death—” “Kings—hope—death,” murmured the little girl automatically. "I swear never to reveal—” "Vea)!” Her eyes brightened. Amid it all, this at least she knew. “The Great Secret!” “Secret!” gasped the Deceiver, with relief. The Desert man’s intensity had been a little oppressive. Besides, she was glad that there really was a secret after all. Replacing the red stone in his pocket, notwithstanding her plainly evident desire to handle it, he piled the twigs together, and lighted them with a match. While they burned he kept silence, by his finger pressed against his lips. He produced his book, ami read its passages to her. line by line. “For thou shalit tied up >n the Ans and the Caeilik ” “What’s an ‘aps’?” demanded Etta Mary, instantly. For answer he.drew his finger along the ground, making a sinuous line. “A thiiake?” hazarded, the child, with a quirm of repulsion, lie nodded. "The reptile of history.” "And the Cathilik?” This time his explanation was not so lucid. He screwed his face into a terrifying scowl, and glared at her, with blazing eyes. Etta Mary drew back a .little, but when his features relaxed, and he smiled crookedly, she saw without an investigation, which she did not can' to pursue, that the t.'aeUik was something that took pleasure in frightening little girls to death. “Ou the other side of the habitation of Satan,” he murmured, and paused a moment to consider. Etta Mary grew restive. It was a secret and yet she eonld not understand. It was most disappointing. “Which side?” asked Etta Mary, petti lantly. The Wanderer looked up in surprise. "Why—the other side,” he responded,

with easy assurance. "This side is here; the other side, of course, is. over —over —there.” , His voice trailed away, with the last words. He begaji to stare at Etta Mary. "The other side,” he repeated, frowning. Then, as if to convince himself of its truth, by saying it out loud, “The other side —is not here, therefore, it is over there,” He brightened perceptibly. This solution was easy. Still, he observed her narrowly, to see if she concurred. “But, thuppothe you are on the other thide,” objected the Deceiver, with merciless common sense. . The old man’s face became a blank. Etta Mary chuckled with glee, and clapped her hands. "Thon dothn’t know? Thon dothn’t know!” she screamed, triumphantly. With a shrewd realisation of her power to force further disclosures of the Great Secret, she drove his ignorance home, and clinched it tight. “Thon dothn’t know the other thide! Poor old Thon! Etta Mary Pearson knowth! Poor old Thon!” He felt that here was a crucial point. All too late, a fatal omission was being uncovered, something that should have been discovered years ago. He realised, with torturing shame, that he did not know which was the "Other Side” of which the book told. He surveyed her doubtfully. Was it possible that the yellow curls dancing before him, as she constantly repeated the agonising chant, covered a knowledge of the right, in fact the only direction in which he might proceed ? “Poor old Thon!” chanted Etta Mary, for the twentieth time. The Wanderer made up his mind. Adjusting the rope of the little red waggon to his shoulder, he rose to his feet, taking pains to keep his face turned away. lie busied himself with some mysterious preparations. Immediately she became curious. Scrambling precipitately over the back of the waggon, she sat down among the blankets and tin eans. “Take we willin', Thon!” said Etta Mary. The Desert Man turned away, to hide a crafty smile. On the approach to the Devil’s Playground the sage brush gradually fades away, growing sparsely where the glistening sand begins, to creep with long white fingers into the darker soil of the mesa-land, finally becoming only an isolated dot here and there. It is here that an intimation comes of the great heat in the centre of the basin ami the vastness of that trackless, waterless waste. For twenty miles it stretches to

the north* frnM 'Pumper,’«nd (vrrat y to lhe west, a hideous Haring scar upon the fare of God’s green earth. Here the little red waggon came to a halt: On either side of him jutted out, as if into a hike, great barren headlands, rapped with a liow of black, lava rock, narked into uncouth shapes, Jagged and sinister. Jn undulating mounds and swells, the Desert spread itself before him, white, soft, deathly silent. As he looked, a forgetful rabbit hopped lazily out on its surface and sat. blinking in the light. Then, although it did not see him, it scurried hastily back to its shady vert, with more speed than grace. lie moved a little to one side, and coming into another current of air. a blast, struck him full in the face. It was hot as the breath of a furnace. The sand on a nearby hillock slid down and spread itself abroad; he thought he could hear the grains rattling one on another, in the ghastly silence; then. whisked together by a gust of wind, resolved into a whirling dancing pillar, that threw itself around him like a shroud, tilling his eyes, and stinging his flesh, with pricking, irritating particles. The twist in his lips became unconsciously exaggerated. He stood for a moment, nervously considering the prospect. A nebulous forecast of the task before him seemed floating through his mind, trying to wage warfare with a comprehension that shifted, evaded, and constantly refused the battle, piophesying bitter moments to even such as he. And yet far beyond, faintly wavering through the eddying waves of heat., their snow-tipped peaks shimmering and sparkling in the bright sunshine, lay the dim, blue mountains of the promised land. He turned back to the waggon, wherein the child lay curled up. a corner of the blanket drawn over her face, for the hot sun had made her drowsy. It seemed a tong journey for a woman. If she had not seemed so sure that she knew., perhaps, perhaps The child opened her eyes. “Where you going;* murmured Etta Mary sleepily. “Thon, dwivc on!” He picked up the tongue, ami took a step forward. The waggon’s wheels sank softly into the yielding sand. “And ihrea Archangels willt accompany thee,’* he muttered. He threw back his head with a quiver of joy that extended to the extremities of bis limbs. He cried his fore word again. “And then thou shalit be happy!” It was nearly eleven when Jim Pearson

eame Lack from the town. The house was empty, and the door shut. As lie went lo tho corral for his horse and waggon he remembered that earlier in the day he had seen his wife going to the house of a poor Woman whose husband had lieen ‘‘done up*’ the night before. The riff-raff of humanity which the now somnolent railroad had brought to Tuniper were still hanging on in hopes of work. In the meantime they turned their talents to other things, in which the remuneration was possibly quicker. “1 reckon she's packed off Ettamary, tu," he mused. “Mebbe she allowed the ride would be tu much. Well—Sue knows.”

And so it happened that a little later, ■when Sue returned and found the horse and waggon gone, she quickly concluded that Etta Mary was with Jim, on the road to Dellabar; and Jim, enveloped in a pillar of dust, patiently jogging along towards the mountain mining camp, thought the child safe at home in Tuniper, either of which things, as the day drew on, it became very evident that little Etta Mary Pearson was not.

Her solitary meal finished, and what there was of her household goods put in order, Sue Pearson repaired to the Christensen’s for a neighbourly call. Smiling Christensen received her with evident joy. Tuniper was filling up with people from the outlying ranches, for a dance that night, and Oliver Lee had asked her io go with him.

Tu (he intervals between 'Minna’s naive disclosures her mother could be heard cleaning her kitchen utensils and cheeking over the family supplies with audible satisfaction, a subtle hint to those whose extravagance led them to feed and house the casual stranger. Presently she appeared. her thin brown hair drawn into a rcpollantly hard tuft behind, her sallow face bright with a not unkindly curiosity.

‘’Ettamary lien come back?” she asked, #3 she rocked to and fro. Sue shook her head. “No, Jim won’t be back before night,” she answered. The other woman looked surprised. "Before the night,” she repeated. “Vy, Ah tank she not ben wit Yim.” It was Sue’s turn to stare.

‘‘Why, Jim look her to Dellabar, T thought,” she faltered, A feeling of uneasiness stole over her. “Ah tank not,” said Minna’s mother;' “Ah tank she ben wit dot ole foolish.” Then, with merciful rapidity, as a look of awful fright came over Sue Pearson’s face, “Ah see her and the ole man goin’ hvny in the brush, early in the mornin’— nine o'clock, Ah tank.” "TH! Minna!” gasped Mrs Christensen, “catch to her, quick! Here! tun git jyatter! She ben faintin’!”

But Sue Pearson staggered to her feef Unaided.

‘‘Oh I what shall I do?” she moaned. “Minna! Minna! what shall I do?” Minna Christensen did not delay. Action at this moment appealed to her more Ilian advice. As she Hew out of the door, and down the street into Tuniper, the occupants of the scattered dwellings caught up the news as if by inagic, from her fragmentary sentences. Prom every rickety house and tattered tent a woman shot forth. Throwing their aprons over their heads they scurried up the road towards the PearSon’s home, and there crowded the loom, a moaning, pitying, suffocating mob, until Mrs Christensen drove them but,

The men camo out of the saloons in twos and threes, furtively wiping their jjaouths on the backs of their hands. They eyed one another sternly, as some one Induced them to apply the casa to their own offspring. Instinctively they separated, and scattered themselves through the brush lying between Tuniper and the desert. But Minna did no! stop until she reached the “Little Gem.” “Aie-e! come owit!” she shrieked frantically from tho door, and Oliver Lee held the little ball suspended in midair, to see the panting, excited girl who dared the sacred silence of the “Little Gem.** • 3

The crowd around the wheel twisted their necks to dislocation.

“Old John iff the Desert’s runned avay With little Ettamary Pearson!” screamed Minna, looking straight at Oliver Loo. She knew he would not fail her.

‘'Gents!” said Oliver Lee quietly, but with an eye that sent the chairs shooting backwards over the floor, “this game stops right yore! Please tu cash in, before yu saddle up!” he shouted above the din of explosive threats, and tho ■tamping rush of heavy boots towards the door.

“We open again when little Ettamary, gets found.”

A few minutes later the streets of Tuniper were-filled with horsemen, and when the news came in that the trail had been picked up a hundred yards out in the Devil’s playground, a man shot up the road to Dellabar on a long, ranging lope to meet the father and bring him back by the shorter trail, which crossed an arm of the desert. The horsemen gathered at the Pearson's house, some with canteens of water swinging from their pommels, and all were armed.

Tony Le France’s headgear was affording him much trouble. Somehow’ it had got into his hand, and he was fumbling it over, awkwardly, until, with a shamed side glance, he saw that “Swiss Bob's” yellow crop was bare, and also the sleek black head of Mr William Overtoil, the Wicked One, who was prepared as if for a stern chase, down to the sawed-off Winchester slung under his leg. ■Sue Pearson, her face white, with suspense, stood at the horses’ heads. “I don t know why he has taken her,” said the quivering lips, amid a silence that only the fretting horses disturbed. “I don’t know why he has chosen that awful place. I—l —thought he was just a poor, harmless old man. I thought he wouldn’t hurt any—anybody.” She had to stop for an instant.

“Much less you. Ma’am,” said Oliver Lee, so softly that not many heard him“Just bring her back to me!-” pleaded the mother. “That’s all I want! ” She fingered a rein nervously. “She’s pretty nearly all we have now,” she faltered, “If Jim was here I wouldn't hare to ask it from you.” She stepped baek to let them go. Each man felt as if she were looking straight at him. “Just bring her back; that’s all I want! ”

The noonday sun shone down upon a succession of rounded hillocks and miniature bluffs with combing tops, and long sloping swells, that constantly changed their sizes and contents as the wind pulled and they slid upon themselves.

The Test was glaring, unvarvin<* white.

Against this background a gaunt figure with an inky shadow dragged itself along, going always westward.

Behind it, sunk to 'the hubs of the wheels, came a small red waggon. Often he stopped to rest himself, swallowing in his throat, and stretching his mouth wide open, in an effort to relieve his thirst. His face streamed with perspiration. It wore a look of fear, mingled with exhaustion, but something always drove it away, and his jaws clenched tight with an expression of dogged resolve.

Occasionally a fragment of desert willow. half drifted over, rose, above the sand, ami a lizard darted with shadowlike flickerings from under his feet. There was no other life.

He dropped the tongue at last, and knelt by the side of the’ waggon. The child’s head and upper body were covered by the blanket, and although her eyes were shut, she still breathed faintly. appearing to be in a stupor. Beside her lay a half-emptied can of corn.

The gray face looked down upon her with au expression that showed a dawning conviction of his hardihood, wrought in his mind by immense physical stress. As he continued to gaze at her, her breath seemed to come a little slower. A look of fear shot into hjs face; this time it refused to go away. He rose painfully to his feet. Shading his weak eyes with his hand, he peered across the swells. The fair, blue mountains he had seen from the shore had long since been lost to bis view. He only felt before him unreckoned miles of plodding, of weary ascents of treacherous mounds; only saw a hundred others, whose gaps, when he had forced himself on once more, ho seemed never able to find. Again he looked at the waggon. This lime the little bundle seemed quite still. In an agony of apprehension ho tore the covering from her face and put his ear close, to the tiny, puckered mouth. A look of relief flickered over his face. Covering her carefully again he seized the rope. A moment of vacillation, a look towards the west, a dry sob In his throat, and he had turned turned his baek on the Land of Pro 1 - mise, and was plodding wearily through the heavy sand, going back the way ho had come.

The men had strung themselves ouE in a line, extending for a quarter of a mile. They rode with a hundred yards between them, for the fast-drifting sand often obliterated the trail. When one lost it he shouted to those on either side, who, if they in turn missed the footprints, called to the others. They rode thus for several miles, sometimes spurring their animals up the hummocks to obtain a wider view, or trotting them rapidly where the trail lay plain before them. Although the heat was scorching, the horses blowing and flecked with foam, they rode with unfaltering steadiness, a long line of stalwart figures, grim and silent.

After a time a man shouted. They reined in and looked to where he was pointing. Two black specks were coming rapidly towards them from the long arm where the Dellabar road sometimes crossed. It was Jim Pearson, his face drawn and haggard, forcing his horse to a gallop, the lathered traces still swinging from its sides. They spurred up to him. There was a rapid, searching of faces, a low voiced repetition of all that was known, a Hard exclamation. and then Jim Pearson, draining a proffered canteen, swept the sweat from his eyes and took his place at their head.

Four o’clock came, and with i't no signa beyond the faintly recurring footprints. A half hour more —they had been gone since two o’clock —and still the sea of sand.

At last, far down the line, a cry rose up. Again they reined up, as they had done a hundred times before, and peered from under their broad brims.

They saw nothing. Still the man yelled and gesticulated frantically toward some point above the level of the ground. Then, one after the other, they saw it. It was a mirage. Half floating in the air far away, half touching the ground, two blurred masses, the smaller following at a measured distance, were seen moving westward. Sometimes they took on sharper forms, and they saw the man they sought, magnified to four times his natural size, a gigantic, misshapen figure, apparently receding from them with giant strides, dragging behind him an oblong mass they knew to be the little red waggon. More than one man sighed with relief. They had their direction now. Barring accidents, some one of their number could come up with him before nightfall. As they trotted forward, the vision faded away, and thby had to keep their course by the sun. Once more, however, the mirage took shape. This time, tha Desert Man’s course seemed to have changed. He was no longer going westward, but was baring back to the. northeast. With a common impulse, the line of horses swung around, and took a direction that would intercept him.

Nearer and nearer they came to the bald headlands, until, after an hour’s steady trot, they were within a quarter of a mile, where the ragged fin of a hill sank into the sands. Then they saw something—in fact, two Hungs.

The father was first. As he dismounted, however, he pushed the. "revolver under his vest again in front. There was no need of it now. Drawn up on the rocky billside, under the scant shade of a bush, stood the little red waggon. A few feet away, stiff and silent, his face bearing witness to the torture through which he had passed, lay the bundle, of tatters they had known for a little while as “John of the Desert.”

Tearing away the covering, the father clutched his child frantically to his bosom. A faint movement at her heart showed that she still lived. He called for whisky. A dozen flasks flashed before his eyes; Tuniper was always ‘‘heeled.” He poured some between her lips and rubbed it on her face and wrists. In a half circle they stood before him, ns he crooned over her and strove to bring baek the spark of life, a- hardened, rough-and-ready group, their thumbs crooked into their revolver belts, their faces as alive with mingled hope and fear las his. Suddenly a shout went up. “By ! she’s alive! You blamed old son of a gurU You've brought her tu!" There was a rush forward. Poor Jim Pearson thought all tha world was there, to shake him by the hand. Presently, the tears still streaming from his eyes, he stumbled down the hill, his precious burden clutched tightly in his arms. They dropped back and opened n way for him.

“Don’t keep the missus wailing!” they ■aid with one accord. Two of them, ofc

filler horses, rated oft to bring the new< to Tuniper, while the rest, who had something yet to do, rolled cigarette® leisurely, and talked it over before beginning their task. They still stood on the side of ths hill, where a ledge of outcropping rode ran directly up the slope. By delicate balancing a man managed to turn a piece of the rock over with hia toe. While the others smoked and laughed, something in it caught his fancy. He weighed it in his hand with an automatic motion, and brought it nearer his eye. Presently when none was looking, he put it in his pocket.

The strain being over, another cast about for- something to while away tha time, and being western born, did what the other had done. They looked over his shoulder in idle curiosity. Some one spoke, with a quick intake of his breath. “Holy jumpin’ Jimmy!” They scattered instantly. They stripped the ledge with their bright, roving eyes. “Looks party glide!” they said approvingly. “There’s where she strikes —looka yere, up past that there dead bush!” “Say, Tony, shove the old man over a bit!” “No, don’t du that. Jest scrape out a hole down below, and cover him with sand. Kick that waggon away!. We want to see how wide she is!” But while they spoke a deft hand laid n piece of paper, duly inscribed, upon a rock, and placed another above it, and yet another, until a full-fledged location monument had risen under their very eyes. “Gents!” said the dealer from tha “Little Gem," significantly, “this yer® claim is held for Jim Pearson!” There was a moment of silenee. “Hum,” said one. and smoothed big chin reflectively. They looked at one another, judicially weighing the , pros and cons. A man snickered. “Done again!" Immediately the chorus, sulphurouslyt benefieient: “Well, by ! I reckon that's about right!” The crowd moved down to the houses* Ten minutes later they were lost t-ft view. Tuniper would be gay to-night. But the sands had meanwhile slid and sifted, across the little mound at ths foot of the hill, and rounded off its angles, until it was only a soft, white billow among a thousand others, a clean, warm winding-sheet for him who had found at last the Mine of Perpetual Silence—and was happy!