“Let’s go closer,” suggested John.

Rhoda thrust cold little fingers into his hand.

The doors were empty and forlorn.  The terraced walls, built with the patient labor of the long ago, were sagged and decayed.  Riot of greasewood crowned great heaps of debris.  A loneliness as of the end of the world came upon the two wanderers.  Sick and dismayed, they stood in awe before this relic of the past.

“Whoo! Whoo!” an owl’s cry sounded from the black window openings.

DeWitt spoke softly.

“Rhoda, it’s one of the forgotten cities!”

“Let’s go back!  Let’s go back to the spring!” pleaded Rhoda.  “It is so uncanny in the dark!”

“No!” DeWitt rubbed his aching head wearily.  “I must contrive some sort of shelter for you.  Almost anything is better than another night in the open desert.  Come on!  We will explore a little.”

“Let’s wait till morning,” begged Rhoda.  “I’m so cold and shivery.”

“Dear sweetheart, that’s just the point.  You will be sick if you don’t have some sort of shelter.  You have suffered enough.  Will you sit here and let me look about?”

“No!  No!  I don’t want to be left alone.”

Rhoda followed John closely up into the mass of fallen rock.

DeWitt smiled.  It appealed to the tenderest part of his nature that the girl who had led him through the terrible experiences of the desert should show fear now that a haven was reached.

“Come on, little girl,” he said.

Painfully, for they both were weak and dizzy, they clambered to a gaunt opening in the gray wall.  Rhoda clutched John’s arm with a little scream as a bat whirred close by them.  Within the opening DeWitt scratched one of his carefully hoarded matches.  The tiny flare revealed a small adobe-walled room, quite bare save for broken bits of pottery on the floor.  John lighted a handful of greasewood and by its brilliant light they examined the floor and walls.

“What a clean, dry little room!” exclaimed Rhoda.  “Oh, I am so tired and sleepy!”

“Let’s look a little farther before we stop.  What’s on the other side of this broken wall?”

They picked their way across the litter of pottery and peered into another room, the duplicate of the first.

“How will these do for our respective sleeping-rooms?” asked DeWitt.

Rhoda stared at John with horror in her eyes.

“I’d as soon sleep in a tomb!  Let’s make a fire outside and sleep under the stars.  I’d rather have sleep than food just now.”

“It will have to be just a tiny smudge, up behind this debris, where Kut-le can’t spot it,” answered DeWitt.  “I won’t mind having a red eye of fire for company.  It will help to keep me awake.”

“But you must sleep,” protested Rhoda.

“But I mustn’t,” answered John grimly.  “I’ve played the baby act on this picnic as much as I propose to.  It is my trick at the wheel.”