haze. "They look like a lot of big old alligators--just as if they was
asleep and lyin' with their shoulders half out of water," he murmured
in gentle, subdued reminiscence. "The darned old no-good things!"

Then, as the bitterness of his lonely life rose up and dulled his mind
and soured his tongue, "Why don't yuh get some mineral into yuh?" he
yelled with abrupt ferocity. "Why ain't yuh some good tuh a feller?
_Zing, zing, zing_--I _hate_ your old heat a-singin' in my ears all
the gosh-blamed time! Why don't yuh _do_ something? Huh? Yuh don't
make it so's anything kin live. Yuh don't give no water, yuh don't
give no grass, yuh don't do nothin'! Yuh jest lay there and make
_heat!_"

[Illustration: "'I'VE SOLD THEM WHEELERS!'"]

[Illustration: "NEAREST TO THE ROUGH PINE BOX STOOD THE WIDOW, WITH
LOWERED EYES"]

Across the mesa the shimmering white surface of a dry lake caught his
angry eye. As he looked, it began to rock gently from side to side.
Presently, in a freakish spirit of its own, it curled up at the edges.
Later, it seemed to turn into a dimpling sheet of water, cool, sweet,
and alluring.

Cassidy burst into a howl of derision that startled his blacks into a
jogging trot: "Oh, yuh cain't fool me, yuh darned old fake!" He shook
a huge red fist in defiance of his ancient foe. "I'll beat yuh
yet--darn yuh!"

Late that night, a large man with a red face and a sunburned neck on