“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, it might be a good plan.  But wait until you know him better and he knows you.  He’s ready to fight for you now.  He’s taken your trouble to heart.  You wouldn’t think Joe is deeply religious.  Yet he is.  He may never breathe a word about religion to you. . . .  Now, Shefford, go ahead.  You’ve struck a trail.  It’s rough, but it’ll make a man of you.  It’ll lead somewhere.”

“I’m singularly fortunate—­I—­who had lost all friends.  Withers, I am grateful.  I’ll prove it.  I’ll show—­”

Withers’s upheld hand checked further speech, and Shefford realized that beneath the rough exterior of this desert trader there was fine feeling.  These men of crude toil and wild surroundings were beginning to loom up large in Shefford’s mind.

The day began leisurely.  The men were yet at breakfast when the women of the village began to come one by one to the spring.  Joe Lake made friendly and joking remarks to each.  And as each one passed on down the path he poised a biscuit in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, and with his head cocked sidewise like an owl he said, “Reckon I’ve got to get me a woman like her.”

Shefford saw and heard, yet he was all the time half unconsciously watching with strange eagerness for a white figure to appear.  At last he saw her—­the same girl with the hood, the same swift step.  A little shock or quiver passed over him, and at the moment all that was explicable about it was something associated with regret.

Joe Lake whistled and stared.

“I haven’t met her,” he muttered.

“That’s the Sago Lily,” said Withers.

“Reckon I’m going to carry that bucket,” went on Joe.

“And queer yourself with all the other women who’ve been to the spring?  Don’t do it, Joe,” advised the trader.

“But her bucket’s bigger,” protested Joe, weakly.

“That’s true.  But you ought to know Mormons.  If she’d come first, all right.  As she didn’t—­why, don’t single her out.”

Joe kept his seat.  The girl came to the spring.  A low “good morning” came from under the hood.  Then she filled her bucket and started home.  Shefford observed that this time she wore moccasins and she carried the heavy bucket with ease.  When she disappeared he had again the vague, inexplicable sensation of regret.

Joe Lake breathed heavily.  “Reckon I’ve got to get me a woman like her,” he said.  But the former jocose tone was lacking and he appeared thoughtful.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Withers first took Shefford to the building used for a school.  It was somewhat larger than the other houses, had only one room with two doors and several windows.  It was full of children, of all sizes and ages, sitting on rude board benches.

There were half a hundred of them, sturdy, healthy, rosy boys and girls, dad in home-made garments.  The young woman teacher was as embarrassed as her pupils were shy, and the visitors withdrew without having heard a word of lessons.