its simplicity, its truth. He had learned at last the lesson it
taught. No longer strange was his meeting and wandering with Warren.
Each had marched in the steps of destiny; and as the lines of their
fates had been inextricably tangled in the years that were gone,
so now their steps had crossed and turned them toward one common
goal. For years they had been two men marching alone, answering
to an inward driving search, and the desert had brought them together.
For years they had wandered alone in silence and solitude, where
the sun burned white all day and the stars burned white all night,
blindly following the whisper of a spirit. But now Cameron knew
that he was no longer blind, and in this flash of revelation he
felt that it had been given him to help Warren with his burden.

He returned to camp trying to evolve a plan. As always at that
long hour when the afterglow of sunset lingered in the west,
Warren plodded to and fro in the gloom. All night Cameron lay
awake thinking.

In the morning, when Warren brought the burros to camp and began
preparations for the usual packing, Cameron broke silence.

"Pardner, your story last night made me think. I want to tell you
something about myself. It's hard enough to be driven by sorrow
for one you've loved, as you've been driven; but to suffer sleepless
and eternal remorse for the ruin of one you've loved as I have
suffered--that is hell. . . . Listen. In my younger days--it seems
long now, yet it's not so many years--I was wild. I wronged the
sweetest and loveliest girl I ever knew. I went away not dreaming
that any disgrace might come to her. Along about that time I fell
into terrible moods--I changed--I learned I really loved her. Then