streets, noise of atrocious music from the brilliant saloons, and rush
of wind and dust, not a minute too soon. They had barely alighted and
surrendered their horses to a friend of Van's when the rain from the
hilltops swooped upon the camp in a fury that seemed like an elemental
threat to sweep all the place, with its follies, hopes, and woes, its
excitements, lawlessness, and struggles, from the face of the barren
desert world.

Beth and her maid were lame and numb. Van could only hustle them
inside a grocery-and-hardware store to save them from a drenching. The
store was separated from a gambling-hall saloon by the flimsiest board
partition. Odors of alcohol, confusion of voices, and calls of a
gamester came unimpeded to the women's senses, together with some
mighty bad singing, accompanied lustily by strains and groans pounded
from a ghastly piano.

"Sit down," said Van, inverting a tub at the feet of the wondering
women. "I'll see if I can rustle up your brother."

He went out in the rain, dived impartially into the first of the
crowded saloons, was somewhat hilariously greeted by a score of
convivial fellows, found no one who knew of young Glen Kent, and
proceeded on to the next.

The horseman was well and favorably known in all directions. He was
eagerly cornered wheresoever he appeared by a lot of fellows who were
friends to little purpose, in an actual test. However, he clung to his
mission with commendable tenacity of purpose, and kept upon his way.
Thus he discovered at length, when he visited the bank--an institution
that rarely closed before ten o'clock in the evening--that Kent had