f the giant sahuaro, and
the gray of sagebrush. In all that wide waste of desolation no
trickling rill or even the smallest of pools glinted under the fierce
rays of the mid-day sun.

Over beyond the north side of the Basin, above the lesser peaks and
buttes, appeared a higher mountain. The top, dwarfed by distance but as
clear cut in outline as a cameo, was divided into three thick tower-like
masses.

"There's your Triple Butte," said Carmena.

"What! So near as that? We can make it by mid-afternoon."

The girl smiled. "You might, if you hurried enough. It's only forty
miles away on a beeline."

Lennon stared, openly incredulous: "Forty miles?"

"Near fifty-five by way of the water-holes--forty to the ranch. We'll
strike for the nearest tank. I've noticed your canteen has been empty
some time. Here's mine."

Though Lennon's throat was parched, he sought to refuse the offered
canteen, which was still half full. Carmena dropped it at his feet and
began to zigzag down the mesa side.

Noon had passed before they gained the foot of the steep slope. Carmena
followed out along a ridge of bare rock, past scattered growths of
thornscrub and cactus, to where windblown sand lay in sterile drifts
alongside the ledges. Here she turned up a narrow cleft of the ridge and
entered the mouth of a small cave.

She knelt to dip her hat down a hole in the bottom of the cave. The hat
came up brimful of water. She drank deeply, refilled the hat, and backed
out past Lennon to water the eager pony.

"I'll thank you to fill the canteens and give the bronc as much more as
he can drink," she directed. "There's firewood on around that point of
rocks. Keep your gun handy."

Lennon was already drinking from a refilled canteen. He found the
cliff-shaded water of the spring pure and deliciously cool. The watering
of the pony took no little time and patience. Though the beast was too
thirsty to show any of his former skittishness, Lennon's sombrero was
leaky from the bullet holes.

When at last he drove the pony on along Carmena's trail, he noticed tiny
cloudlets of dark smoke, like the puffs of a giant's pipe, rising
straight up in the still air from behind the point of rocks. By the time
he rounded the corner the smoke had thinned and lightened to an almost
invisible haze.

A bright little fire of dry sticks was blazing in a sandy hollow.
Carmena knelt beside it, leaning on the muzzle of her rifle. Her dark
eyes were gazing off acro