and the name and the happiness that had been and was now no more.  Often Gale thought of those hundreds of desert travelers, prospectors, wanderers who had ventured down the Camino del Diablo, never to be heard of again.  Belding had told him of that most terrible of all desert trails—­a trail of shifting sands.  Lash had traversed it, and brought back stories of buried waterholes, of bones bleaching white in the sun, of gold mines as lost as were the prospectors who had sought them, of the merciless Yaqui and his hatred for the Mexican.  Gale thought of this trail and the men who had camped along it.  For many there had been one night, one campfire that had been the last.  This idea seemed to creep in out of the darkness, the loneliness, the silence, and to find a place in Gale’s mind, so that it had strange fascination for him.  He knew now as he had never dreamed before how men drifted into the desert, leaving behind graves, wrecked homes, ruined lives, lost wives and sweethearts.  And for every wanderer every campfire had a phantom face.  Gale measured the agony of these men at their last campfire by the joy and promise he traced in the ruddy heart of his own.

By and by Gale remembered what he was waiting for; and, getting up, he took the halter and went out to find Blanco Sol.  It was pitch-dark now, and Gale could not see a rod ahead.  He felt his way, and presently as he rounded a mesquite he saw Sol’s white shape outlined against the blackness.  The horse jumped and wheeled, ready to run.  It was doubtful if any one unknown to Sol could ever have caught him.  Gale’s low call reassured him, and he went on grazing.  Gale haltered him in the likeliest patch of grass and returned to his camp.  There he lifted his saddle into a protected spot under a low wall of the mound, and, laying one blanket on the sand, he covered himself with the other and stretched himself for the night.

Here he was out of reach of the wind; but he heard its melancholy moan in the mesquite.  There was no other sound.  The coyotes had ceased their hungry cries.  Gale dropped to sleep, and slept soundly during the first half of the night; and after that he seemed always to be partially awake, aware of increasing cold and damp.  The dark mantle turned gray, and then daylight came quickly.  The morning was clear and nipping cold.  He threw off the wet blanket and got up cramped and half frozen.  A little brisk action was all that was necessary to warm his blood and loosen his muscles, and then he was fresh, tingling, eager.  The sun rose in a golden blaze, and the descending valley took on wondrous changing hues.  Then he fetched up Blanco Sol, saddled him, and tied him to the thickest clump of mesquite.

“Sol, we’ll have a drink pretty soon,” he said, patting the splendid neck.