cheerfully and encouragingly, with understanding asking after their
needs. Then, placing a gold piece in the woman's hand and promising
to come again, she bade them--"Adios."

For a short distance Barbara now followed the old San Felipe trail
along which, as a baby, she had been brought by her friends to
Jefferson Worth's home. But where the old road crosses the railroad
tracks, and leads northwest into The King's Basin, the girl turned
to the right toward the end of that range of low hills that rims the
Desert.

As her horse traveled up the long gradual slope in the easy swinging
lope of western saddle stock, the view grew wider and wider. The sun
poured its flood of white light down upon the broad Mesa, and away
in the distance the ever-widening King's Basin lay, a magic,
constantly changing ocean of soft colors. Nearer ahead were the
hills, brown and tawny, with blue shadows in the canyons shading to
rose and lilac and purple as they stretched their long lengths away
toward the lofty, snow-capped sentinels of the Pass. Free from the
city with its many odors, the dry air was invigorating like wine and
came to her rich with the smell of the sun-burned, wind-swept
plains. The girl breathed deeply. Her cheeks glowed--her eyes shone.
Even her horse, seeming to catch her spirit, arched his neck and, in
sheer joy of living, pretended to be frightened now and then at
something that was really nothing at all.

At the foot of the first low, rounded hill Barbara faced Pilot to
the northwest and bade him stand still. Motionless now the girl sat
in her saddle, looking away over La Palma de la Mano de Dios. It was
to this point that Barbara so often came, and as she looked now over