f they should follow me, it would be my last day on earth. That
damned Jim would shoot me down as soon as he could get near enough."
Then he remembered that this was Thursday, and that Colonel Whittaker
would expect him in Las Plumas that afternoon. "He'll send to the
ranch to inquire about me when I don't show up to-morrow," Wellesly
thought, "and then everybody will turn out to search for me. But, Good
Lord! I needn't pin any hopes to that! I'd be dead and my bones picked
and bleached long before anybody would think of looking in this hell
hole for me. There would be absolutely no way of tracing me. My only
hope is to--now, where is that pass! Yes, there it is. I'm headed all
right."

He walked rapidly over the low, rocky hills, still fearing possible
pursuit and frequently looking back, until he reached the sandy levels
of the desert. There the trail was so faint that he could scarcely
follow it with his eye. He stopped, perplexed and doubtful, for he
could not remember that it seemed so blind when he traveled it before.
"But there is the pass," he thought. "I'm headed all right, and this
must be the road. It is just another indication of my general
stupidity about everything out of doors. I never look at a road, or
think about directions, or notice the lay of the land, as long as
there is anybody with me upon whom I can depend. I might as well pay
no more attention to this trail and strike straight across the desert.
If I keep my face toward the pass I'm all right."

As long as the road kept a straight course across the sand and alkali
wastes he followed it. But when it bent away in a detour he chose the
air line which he constantly drew from his objective point, and
congratulated himself that he would thus save a little space. He
tramped along, in and out among the cactus and greasewood, and
finally, near sunset, he came upon a great, field-like growth of
prickly-pear cactus. The big, bespined joints spread themselves in a
thick carpet over the sand and climbed over one another in great
hummocks and stuck out their millions upon millions of needles in
every direction. The growth looked as if it might cover hundreds of
acres.

"So that's the reason the trail bent like a bow," thought Wellesly as
he looked at the field of cactus in dismay. "I ought to have known
there was some good reason for it. If I'm lucky enough to find it
again I'll know enough to stick to it. Well, I must skirt along this
field of devil's f