No one offered objections to this arrangement.  “Hurry up, then, and get your mattress,” begged Carol.  “I am so sleepy.”

“I can’t carry them alone through those long dark halls,” Gooding insisted.  Miss Landbury would not accompany him without a third party, Carol flatly refused to leave dear sick David alone in that porch, and at last in despair David donned his bath robe and the four of them crossed the wide parlor, traversed the dark hall to Gooding’s room and returned with mattress, pillows and blankets.  After a great deal of panting and pulling, the little party was settled for sleep.

It must have been an hour later when they were startled into sitting posture, their hearts in their throats, by piercing screams which rang out over the mesa, one after another in quick succession.

“David, David, David,” gasped Carol.

“I’m right here, Carol; we’re all right,” he assured her quickly.

Miss Landbury swayed dizzily and fell back, half-conscious, upon the pillows.  Gooding, with one bound, landed on David’s bed, nearly crushing the breath out of that feeble hero of the darkness.

Lights flashed quickly from tent to tent on the mesa, frightened voices called for nurses, doors slammed, bells rang, and nurses and porters rushed to the rescue.

“Who was it?” “Where was it?” “What is it?”

“Over here, I think,” shouted a man.  “Miss Tucker.  I called to her and she did not answer.”

A low indistinct sound, half groan, half sobbing, came from the open windows of the little tent.  And as they drew near, their feet rattling the dry sand, there came a warning call.

“A light, a light, a light,” begged Miss Tucker.  The nurses hesitated, half frightened, and as they paused they heard a low drip, drip, inside the tent, each drop emphasized by Miss Tucker’s sobs.

The porter flashed a pocket-light, and they opened the door.  Miss Tucker lay in a huddled heap on her bed, her hands over her face, her shoulders rising and falling.  The nurses shook her sternly.

“What is the matter with you?” they demanded.

Finally, she was persuaded to lift her face and mumble an explanation.  “I was asleep, and I heard my name called, and I looked up.  There was a white shadow on the door.  I seized my pillow and threw it with all my might, and there was a loud crash and a roar, and then began that drip, drip, drip,—­oh-h-h!”

“You silly thing,” said Miss Alien.  “Of course there was a crash.  You knocked the chimney off your lamp,—­that made a crash all right.  And the lamp upset, and it is the kerosene drip, dripping from the table to the floor.  Girls who must have kerosene lamps to heat their curlers must look for trouble.”

“The white shadow—­” protested the girl.

“Moonshine, of course.  Look.”  Miss Alien pulled the girl to her feet.  “The whole mesa is in white shadow.  Run around to the tents, girls,” she said to her assistants, “and tell them Miss Tucker had a bad dream,—­nothing wrong.  We will have a dozen bed patients from this night’s foolishness.”