beauty. As it fell from the lips of Señora Moreno the air was a
succession of vocal nasal disharmonies, high-pitched, strident,
nerve-wracking.

[Illustration: Music]

Unable to listen after the third repetition, Plummer slowly retired
from the corral and once more appeared at the front, just in time for
a sensation. Two troopers, two of the men who had ridden back with
Donovan, came lurching into the lighted space before the main
entrance. At sight of the paymaster one of them stiffened up and with
preternatural gravity of mien executed the salute. The other, with an
envelope in his hand, reeled out of saddle, failed to catch his
balance, plunged heavily into the sand and lay there. Corporal Murphy
sprang eagerly forward, the first man to reach him, and turned the
prostrate trooper over on his back.

"What's the matter?" queried Plummer. "Is he sick?"

"Sick is it?" was the quick retort, as the corporal sniffed at the
tainted breath of the sufferer. "Be the powers! I only wish I had half
his disayse."

And then came Feeny, glaring, wrathful.

"Come down off the top of that horse, Mullan," he ordered, fiercely.
"How--how'd ye get here? Which way'd ye come? Where's the rest?"

With the ponderous dignity of inebriety, Mullan slowly pointed up the
desert under the spot where the pole-star glowed in the northern