the naked embrace of this merciless land. Yet as many sorts and
conditions come here each year as are to be found outside.

Silence, ruthlessness, mystery--these are the attributes of the desert.
True, it has its softer phases--veiled dawns and dusks, rainbow hues,
moon and stars. But these are but tender blossoms from a spiked,
poisonous stalk, like the flowers of the cactus. They are brief and
evanescent; the iron parent is everlasting.




Chapter I

A Bluebird's Feather

In the dusk a pack-horse crested a low-lying sand-ridge, put up its
head and sniffed, pushed forward eagerly, its nostrils twitching as it
turned a little more toward the north, going straight toward the
water-hole. The pack was slipping as far to one side as it had listed
to the other half an hour ago; in the restraining rope there were a
dozen intricate knots where one would have amply sufficed. The horse
broke into a trot, blazing its own trail through the mesquite; a parcel
slipped; the slack rope grew slacker because of the subsequent
readjustment; half a dozen bundles dropped after the first. A voice,
thin and irritable, shouted 'Whoa!' and the man in turn was briefly
outlined against the pale sky as he scrambled up the ridge. He was a
little man and plainly weary; he walked as though his boots hurt him;
he carried a wide, new hat in one hand; the skin was peeling from his
blistered face. From his other hand trailed a big handkerchief. He