A fitful breeze played among the mesquite bushes. The naked earth,
where it showed between the clumps of grass, was baked plaster
hard. It burned like hot slag, and except for a panting lizard
here and there, or a dust-gray jack-rabbit, startled from its
covert, nothing animate stirred upon its face. High and motionless
in the blinding sky a buzzard poised; long-tailed Mexican crows
among the thorny branches creaked and whistled, choked and
rattled, snored and grunted; a dove mourned inconsolably, and out
of the air issued metallic insect cries--the direction whence they
came as unascertainable as their source was hidden.

Although the sun was half-way down the west, its glare remained
untempered, and the tantalizing shade of the sparse mesquite was
more of a trial than a comfort to the lone woman who, refusing its
deceitful invitation, plodded steadily over the waste. Stop,
indeed, she dared not. In spite of her fatigue, regardless of the
torture from feet and limbs unused to walking, she must, as she
constantly assured herself, keep going until strength failed. So
far, fortunately, she had kept her head, and she retained
sufficient reason to deny the fanciful apprehensions which
clamored for audience. If she once allowed herself to become
panicky, she knew, she would fare worse--far worse--and now, if
ever, she needed all her faculties. Somewhere to the northward,
perhaps a mile, perhaps a league distant, lay the water-hole.

But the country was of a deadly and a deceitful sameness, devoid
of landmarks and lacking well-defined water-courses. The unending
mesquite with its first spring foliage resembled a limitless
peach-orchard sown by some careless and unbelievably prodigal
hand. Out of these false acres occasional knolls and low stony