"You mean the alkali won't, I guess," put in the first speaker with
an unpleasant laugh; "but he won't go far with ther stock. At the
last waterhole he'll leave 'em and go on by aeroplane."

"You're crazy!"

"Never more sensible in my life. I--"

"Hush! Don't make such a racket. Fer all we know some of them may
be awake and hear us. Now the old Steer Wells trail--"

But here the speaker sank his voice so low that it was impossible to
hear his further words. But Peggy, as she crept back to bed with
her heart throbbing a little bit fast, felt vaguely that the
conversation boded some ill to the mining man and his party of gold
seekers.

"I'm sure I recognized one of those voices," she said to herself;
"it was that of the tall, dark young man with the immense spurs and
that picturesque red sash, who was eyeing us so at supper. Jess and
I thought he looked like a romantic brigand. What if he should turn
out in real earnest to be a desperate character?"

Determining to speak to Jim Bell in the morning about the
conversation she had overheard, Peggy dropped off into a deep
slumber at last, but her dreams were disturbing ones. Now she was
traversing the Big Alkali, with its pungent dust in her nostrils and
her feet crunching its crusty surface. She was lost, and would have
cried out had she been able to open her lips. Then she was dying of