They began a slow march down into the desert. At sunset
they camped under the lee of a low mesa. Cameron was glad his
comrade had the Indian habit of silence. Another day's travel found
the prospectors deep in the wilderness. Then there came a breaking
of reserve, noticeable in the elder man, almost imperceptibly
gradual in Cameron. Beside the meager mesquite campfire this
gray-faced, thoughtful old prospector would remove his black pipe
from his mouth to talk a little; and Cameron would listen, and
sometimes unlock his lips to speak a word. And so, as Cameron
began to respond to the influence of a desert less lonely than
habitual, he began to take keener note of his comrade, and found
him different from any other he had ever encountered in the wilderness.
This man never grumbled at the heat, the glare, the driving sand,
the sour water, the scant fare. During the daylight hours he was
seldom idle. At night he sat dreaming before the fire or paced to
and fro in the gloom. He slept but little, and that long after
Cameron had had his own rest. He was tireless, patient, brooding.

Cameron's awakened interest brought home to him the realization
that for years he had shunned companionship. In those years only
three men had wandered into the desert with him, and these had
left their bones to bleach in the shifting sands. Cameron had
not cared to know their secrets. But the more he studied this
latest comrade the more he began to suspect that he might have
missed something in the others. In his own driving passion to
take his secret into the limitless abode of silence and desolation,
where he could be alone with it, he had forgotten that life dealt
shocks to other men. Somehow this silent comrade reminded him.