e opening
fold of the wagon cover, while Mrs. Douglas close by her was listening
with sympathetic attention deepened into reverent surprise when Elijah
Clifford with his hands over his knees, his head bowed, prayed the
evening prayer in a spirit that seemed to proclaim another man from the
one they had known during the day. And then another hymn in which all
were asked by Miss Gray to join. It all smote Felix with a feeling of
wonder, it was so new and unusual to his experience. But to Masters and
Miss Gray and Clifford it was the regular daily habit of their lives, as
common and necessary to them as it was for the tourist crowd looking on
to close the day's life with a heavy dinner of seven courses and bridge
whist into the next morning. The last glimpse Walter had of Van Shaw as
he moved off towards his own wagons was the look he cast at Miss Gray
again and then transferred to the canvas that covered the chuck wagon
where Helen and her mother sat talking over the strange events of the
day and its strange ending.

The next day was a severe experience for old desert travellers. The wind
blew almost a gale. The sand drifted like snow and the mid day meal was
taken standing, everyone eating as best he could, standing up, and
making no attempt at the setting of a table or the formality of a
regular meal.

Late in the afternoon the grey rock of Oraibi showed through the
whistling sand storm. The wagons halted a little while by the Oraibi
Wash before making the last miles through the difficult sand hillocks at
the foot of the cliff. And it was during this resting period that word
came to Masters from one of the Hopis who had a corn field on the Wash
that recent rains at Oraibi had so damaged the wagon trial leading to
the top that it would be impossible to drive up. All visitors and
tourists must walk up the foot trail.

"That means that Helen can't get to the village. It will be a great
disappointment," said Mrs. Douglas.

It was on the tongue of Felix Bauer to suggest a plan for carrying Helen
up the trail on one of the camp cots when Van Shaw struck in.

"Pardon me, Mrs. Douglas, but it will be an easy thing to carry Miss
Douglas up the trail on a camp cot. Four of us can do it easily. Just
put some tent poles under the sides and let the two behind rest the
poles on their shoulders and the two in front carry lower. In that way
I'm sure we can get Miss Douglas to the top without any inconvenience to
her. It would be