though, after all the hard luck I had been having. Sixty dollars
a day, and growing richer. But the last horn was blowing. No
tobacco, six matches, and nothing left of the bacon but rinds.
Well, the gold is there and the claim'll bring whatever I choose
to ask for it. And Echo shall have a home as good as Allen
Hacienda, and a ranch as fine as Bar One--yes, by God, it'll be
Bar None, my ranch!"

Out of the sea of molten air that stretched before him, that
nebulous chaos of quivering bars and belts of heated atmosphere
which remains above the desert as a memorial of the first stage
of the entire planet's existence, the imagination of the
prospector created a paradise of his own. There took shape
before his eyes a Mexican hacienda, larger and more beautiful
even than that of Echo's father, the beau-ideal of a home to his
limited fancy. And on the piazza in front, covered with
flowering vines, there stood awaiting him the slender figure of a
woman, with outstretched arms and dark eyes, tender with yearning
love.

"Echo--Echo Allen!" he murmured, fondly repeating the name. "No,
not Echo Allen, but Echo Lane, for Dick Lane has redeemed his
promise, and returns to claim you as his own."

As he gazed upon the shimmering heat waves which distorted and
displaced the objects within and beneath them, a group of
horsemen suddenly appeared to him in the distance, and as
suddenly vanished in thin air.

"Rurales!" ejaculated Lane. "I wonder if they are chasing