her form, which was youthful and slender, was swathed in a clinging
raw-silk dust-cloak. As she stood, hesitating before summoning her cramped
limbs to her service, she might have suggested some half-evolved conception
of doubting young womanhood emerging from the sculptor's clay. Personality,
as yet, she had none; but all that could be seen of her was pure feminine.

Thane reached the side of the wagon before the veiled young woman could
attempt to jump. She freed her skirts, stepped on the brake bar, and
stooping, with his support made a successful spring to the ground. Mr.
Withers climbed out more cautiously, keeping his hand on Thane's arm for
a few steps through the heavy sand. Thane left his fellow pilgrims to
themselves apart, and returned to help the teamster take out the horses.

"It looks queer to me," Mr. Kinney remarked, "that folks should want to
come so far on purpose to harrer up their feelin's all over again. It ain't
as if the young man was buried here, nor as if they was goin' to mark the
spot with one of them Catholic crosses like you see down in Mexico, where
blood's been spilt by the roadside. But just to set here and think about
it, and chaw on a mis'able thing that happened two years and more ago!
Lord! I wouldn't want to, and I ain't his father nor yet his girl. Would
you?"

"Hardly," said Thane. "Still, if you felt about it as Mr. Withers does,
you'd put yourself in the place of the dead, not the living; and he has a
reason for coming, besides. I haven't spoken of it, because I doubt if the
thing is feasible. He wants to see whether the water, of the spring can be
brought into the hollow here--piped, to feed a permanent drinking trough
and fountain. Good for evil, you see--the soft answer."

"Well, that's business! That gits down where a man lives. His cattle kin