“Good evening,” said Enoch.  “Can you tell me where I can buy some food?”

“What kind of grub?” asked the Indian.

“Anything I can cook and eat,” replied Enoch, dismounting stiffly.  “What kind of camp is this?”

“Navajo.  What your name?”

“Smith.  What’s yours?”

“John Red Sun.  How much you pay for grub?”

“Depends on what kind and how much.  Which way are you folks going?”

“We take horses to the railroad,” replied John Red Sun.  “Me and my brother, that’s all, so we haven’t got much grub.  You come over by the fire.”  Enoch dropped the reins over Pablo’s head and followed to the fire.  An Indian, who was boiling coffee at the little blaze, looked up with interest in his black eyes.

“Good evening,” said Enoch.  “My name is Smith.”

The Indian nodded.  “You like a cup of coffee?  Just done.”

“Thanks, yes.”  Enoch sat down gratefully by the fire.  The desert night was sharp.

“Where you going, Mr. Smith?” asked John Red Sun.

“I’m an Easterner, a tenderfoot,” replied Enoch.  “I am very tired and I thought I’d like to rest in the desert.  I was on the train when the idea struck me, and I got off just as I was.  I bought the horse and these clothes from an Indian.”

“Where you going?” repeated John’s brother.  “To see Injun villages?”

“No, I don’t think so.  I just want to be by myself.”

“It’s foolish for tenderfoot to go alone in desert,” said John.  “You don’t know where to get water, get grub.”

“Oh, I’ll pick it up as I go.”

The Indians stared at Enoch in the firelight.  His ruddy hair was tumbled by the night wind.  His face was deep lined with fatigue that was mental as well as physical.

“You mustn’t go alone in desert.”  John Red Sun’s voice was earnest.  “You sleep here to-night.  We’ll talk it over.”

“You’re very kind,” said Enoch.  “I’ll unsaddle my pony.  Ought I to hobble him or stake him out?”

“I fix ’im.  You drink your coffee.”  The brother handed Enoch a tin cup as he spoke.  “Then you go to sleep.  You mucho tired.”

Their hospitality touched Enoch.  “You’re very kind,” he repeated gratefully, and he drank the vile coffee without blinking.  Then, conscious that he was trembling with weariness, he rolled himself in his blankets.  But he slept only fitfully.  The sand was hard, and his long afternoon’s nap had taken the edge from his appetite for sleep.  He spent much of the night wondering what Washington, what the President was saying about him.  And his sunburned face was new dyed with his burning sense of shame.

At the first peep of dawn, John Red Sun rose from the other side of the fire, raked the ashes and started a blaze going.  Enoch discovered that the camp lay at the foot of a mesa, close in whose shadow a small herd of scraggly, unkempt ponies was staked.  The two Indians moved about deftly.  They watered the horses, made coffee and cakes and fried bacon.  By the time Enoch had shaved, a pie tin was waiting for him in the ashes.