‘I estimate,’ the professor announced at breakfast, ’that we shall be the matter of two or three months at Last Ridge.  What comforts we have there will be the results of our own efforts.  Now, though we have brought with us certain of the absolute necessities, there is much in the way of provision and sundries that we should have.  Mr. Howard has been so very considerate as to offer us a wagon and horses and even a driver.  I think, my dear, that we would do well to drive into Big Run, which I understand is a progressive community with an excellent store.  We can get what we require there and the next day return to the Last Ridge.’

Only approval greeted his words.  Howard, it appeared, had business in Big Run and would make the trip with them; Carr judged that it was time for him to be clearing out, and his way led through Big Run.  So they hurried through breakfast and started.

Tod Barstow handled the reins of the four mules; beside him on the high, rocking seat, sat Longstreet.  During his sojourn on the ranch he had acquired a big bright-red bandana handkerchief which now was knotted loosely about his sun-reddened throat; the former crease in his big hat had given place to a tall peak:  he wore a pair of leather wrist-cuffs which he had purchased from Barbee.  Barstow grunted and turned the grunt into a shrill yell directed at his mules; they knew his voice and jammed their necks deep into their collars, taking the road at a run.  Longstreet, taken unawares, bounced and came dangerously near toppling off the seat.  Then with both hands he clung to the iron guard-rod at the back of the seat and took his joy out of a new mode of travel.

Helen had elected to go on horseback.  Howard had brought out for her a pretty little mare, coal-black and slender-limbed, but sufficiently gentle.  Barbee, who had been watching, suddenly set his toe in his own stirrup and went up into the saddle, racing on to overtake and pass the wagon.  Howard and Carr glanced swiftly at each other; then their eyes went to the girl.  Howard helped her to mount and reined in at her right, Carr dropped into place at her left, and so, the three abreast, they followed Barbee.

They rode slowly, and now Howard, now Carr, told her of the points of interest along the trail.  When they crossed the lower end of the valley and came to the top of the gentle slope extending along its eastern edge, Helen made a discovery.  All these latter days she had thought of the desert as behind her, lying all to the westward.  Now she understood how the ranch was aptly named Desert Valley; it was a freak, an oasis, a fertile valley with desert lands to east as well as west, and to north and south.  When they had ridden down the far slope of the hills they were once more upon the edges of the solitudes of sand-sweep and sand-ridge and cactus and mesquite and utter drought.  Every step their horses took carried them further into a land of arid menace; at the end of the first hour it was difficult to imagine green water-fields only a handful of miles away.