roots. Years would pass. Cameron seemed to see them, too; and
likewise destiny leading a child down into this forlorn waste,
where she would find love and fortune, and the grave of her father.

Cameron covered the dark, still face of his comrade from the light
of the waning moon.

That action was the severing of his hold on realities. They fell
away from him in final separation. Vaguely, dreamily he seemed to
behold his soul. Night merged into gray day; and night came again,
weird and dark. Then up out of the vast void of the desert, from
the silence and illimitableness, trooped his phantoms of peace.
Majestically they formed around him, marshalling and mustering in
ceremonious state, and moved to lay upon him their passionless serenity.



I


OLD FRIENDS

RICHARD GALE reflected that his sojourn in the West had been
what his disgusted father had predicted--idling here and there,
with no objective point or purpose.

It was reflection such as this, only more serious and perhaps
somewhat desperate, that had brought Gale down to the border.
For some time the newspapers had been printing news of Mexican
revolution, guerrilla warfare, United States cavalry patrolling