“I never had a secret, except the one you know,” she answered.  “You ask me so often what I think about, and you always ask me when we’re here.”  She was silent for a pause.  “I don’t think at all till you make me.  It’s beautiful out there.  But that’s not what it is to me.  I can’t tell you.  When I sit down here all within me is—­is somehow stilled.  I watch—­and it’s different from what it is now, since you’ve made me think.  Then I watch, and I see, that’s all.”

It came to Hare afterward with a little start of surprise that Mescal’s purposeless, yet all-satisfying, watchful gaze had come to be part of his own experience.  It was inscrutable to him, but he got from it a fancy, which he tried in vain to dispel, that something would happen to them out there on the desert.

And then he realized that when they returned to the camp-fire they seemed freed from this spell of the desert.  The blaze-lit circle was shut in by the darkness; and the immensity of their wild environment, because for the hour it could not be seen, lost its paralyzing effect.  Hare fell naturally into a talkative mood.  Mescal had developed a vivacity, an ambition which contrasted strongly with her silent moods; she became alive and curious, human like the girls he had known in the East, and she fascinated him the more for this complexity.

The July rains did not come; the mists failed; the dews no longer freshened the grass, and the hot sun began to tell on shepherds and sheep.  Both sought the shade.  The flowers withered first—­all the blue-bells and lavender patches of primrose, and pale-yellow lilies, and white thistle-blossoms.  Only the deep magenta of cactus and vermilion of Indian paint-brush, flowers of the sun, survived the heat.  Day by day the shepherds scanned the sky for storm-clouds that did not appear.  The spring ran lower and lower.  At last the ditch that carried water to the corral went dry, and the margin of the pool began to retreat.  Then Mescal sent Piute down for August Naab.

He arrived at the plateau the next day with Dave and at once ordered the breaking up of camp.

“It will rain some time,” he said, “but we can’t wait any longer.  Dave, when did you last see the Blue Star waterhole?”

“On the trip in from Silver Cup, ten days ago.  The waterhole was full then.”

“Will there be water enough now?”

“We’ve got to chance it.  There’s no water here, and no springs on the upper range where we can drive sheep; we’ve got to go round under the Star.”

“That’s so,” replied August.  His fears needed confirmation, because his hopes always influenced his judgment till no hope was left.  “I wish I had brought Zeke and George.  It’ll be a hard drive, though we’ve got Jack and Mescal to help.”

Hot as it was August Naab lost no time in the start.  Piute led the train on foot, and the flock, used to following him, got under way readily.  Dave and Mescal rode along the sides, and August with Jack came behind, with the pack-burros bringing up the rear.  Wolf circled them all, keeping the flanks close in, heading the lambs that strayed, and, ever vigilant, made the drive orderly and rapid.