barely totter.

Carmena rode up alongside. She huskily whispered for him to hand over
her rifle and grasp the stirrup leather. He had not dragged along beside
the pony more than a hundred paces when a jerk on the reins headed the
weary beast around into the mouth of a broad canon. Carmena uttered a
sharp cry and pointed ahead. Near the base of the canon wall a dark
patch on the ledges was shimmering in the sunrays.

Hope flared high in the hearts of the perishing fugitives--only to
flicker and die out again in utter despair. The black patch was
water--a tiny spring that seeped from a horizontal crevice between the
stratas of rock--but its trickle was spread out in a paper-thin sheet
down the sloping lower ledges. At their foot it vanished in the dry sand
of the canon bed.

They could cool their swollen tongues and so obtain temporary relief
from their suffering. But they could not suck up enough water to quench
their terrible thirst. Nor could they collect in the canteen even a gill
of water to take with them.

Lennon, however, was an engineer. Even while hope fled from him, his
eyes were peering around with the scrutiny of a trained observer and
thinker.

His roving gaze fixed upon a bank a little way out from the canon mouth.
He staggered down to it and came back with a handful of dry clay. This
he spread out upon the least tilted of the wet ledges. By patting and
scraping he soon had a little ball that kneaded like putty in his eager
fingers.

Carmena already had perceived his purpose and was hurrying to fetch a
heaping hatful of the dry clay. Before many minutes they had built a
little concave dam, in which the down-seeping water slowly but steadily
collected.

When at last they had quenched their thirst Lennon took his rifle and
went to sit under a shady ledge where he could look out into the Basin.
Carmena lingered at the spring to water the pony and fill the canteen.
She then gave all the cornmeal to the beast and brought slices of raw
bacon to share with Lennon.

He clasped the hand in which she held out his first slice.

"So we made it, after all. Good work?"

"Yes, we made it, Jack!" she exulted. "Close shave--but worth the risk.
I know now for sure you're a man, a real man!"

Her glowing eyes brought a deeper red into Lennon's sunburnt face.

"I'm still pretty much of a tenderfoot," he protested. "And there's this
game arm. I'd rather run than fight."

The girl smiled.

"That's all right t