’It is amazing, my dear!  Positively.  You never heard of such a thing.  The horse, the tall, slender one, ran away, from me.  I hastened in pursuit, calling to him to wait for me.  It appeared that he had become suddenly refractory:  they do that sometimes.  I was going to reprimand him; I thought that it might be necessary to chastise him, as sometimes a man must do to retain the mastery.  But I stayed my hand.  The animal had not run away at all!  He actually knew what he was doing.  He came straight here.  And what do you think he discovered?  What do you imagine brought him?  You would never guess.’

‘Water?’ suggested the girl, coming on.

Something of the man’s excitement had gone from his voice when he answered.  He was like a child who has propounded a riddle that has been too readily guessed.

‘How did you know?’

’I didn’t know.  But the horses must be thirsty.  Of course they would go straight to water.  Animals can smell it, can’t they?’

‘Can they?’ He looked to her inquiringly when she stood at his side.  ‘It is amazing, nevertheless.  Positively, my dear,’ he added with a touch of dignity.

The two horses, side by side, were drinking noisily from a small depression into which the water oozed slowly.  The girl watched them a moment abstractedly, sighed and sat down in the sand, her hands in her lap.

‘Tired, Helen?’ asked the man solicitously.

‘Aren’t you?’ she returned.  ‘It has been a hard day, papa.’

‘I am afraid it has been hard on you, my dear,’ he admitted, as his eyes took stock of the drooping figure.  ‘But,’ he added more cheerfully, ’we are getting somewhere, my girl; we are getting somewhere.’

‘Are we?’ she murmured to herself rather than for his ears.  And when he demanded ‘Eh?’ she said hastily:  ’Anyway, we are doing something.  That is more fun than growing moss, even if we never succeed.’

‘I tell you,’ he declared forensically, lifting his hand for a gesture, ’I know!  Haven’t I demonstrated the infallibility of my line of action?  If a man wants to—­to gather cherries, let him go to a cherry tree; if he seeks pearls, let him find out the favourite habitat of the pearl oyster; if he desires a—­a hat, let him go to the hatter’s.  It is the simplest thing in the world, though fools have woven mystery and difficulty about it.  Now——­’

‘Yes, pops.’  Helen sighed again and saw wisdom in rising to her feet.  ’If you will begin unpacking I’ll make our beds.  And I’ll get the fire started.’

‘We can dispense with the fire,’ he told her, setting to work with the first knot to come under his fingers.  ’There is coffee in the thermos bottle and we can open a tin of potted chicken.’

‘The fire makes it cosier,’ Helen said, beginning to gather twigs.  Last night coyotes had howled fearsomely, and even dwellers of the cities know that the surest safeguard against a ravening beast is a camp-fire.  For a little while the man strove with his tangled rope; she was lost to him through the mesquite.  Suddenly she came running back.