across the desert was in his veins.

"We'll be running Porter down before we can see him, Chip," he called,
the wind of their flight casting his words behind him in splintering
echoes.

But Merriwell had no fear of that. If Nick Porter had ridden hard, he
would already have had time to cover the distance between the mine and
McGurvin's.

McGurvin's ranch was the last place, short of Happenchance in the Picket
Post Mountains, where water could be secured. Surely, if Porter had come
that way, he would stop at the ranch. He had left the mine too hurriedly
to equip himself with water canteens and rations for a prolonged stay in
the desert. Frank's hopes were mounting high as the motor cycles
devoured the distance that separated their riders front McGurvin's.

At last, in fifteen or twenty minutes--certainly less than half an
hour--the mad pace was slowed as the destination hove duskily into
sight. A yellow gleam showed at one of the windows of the ranch house,
and suggested that the proprietor might be entertaining a caller.

The machines were halted at a little distance from the dwelling, and
Merry stole forward to reconnoiter, ere announcing himself in person to
McGurvin. There was no curtain at the window through which shone the
lamp-light, and the lad crept up to it and looked into the room. Only
one man was visible, and that was the ranch owner himself. He sat by a
table, reading.

"I guess we're off the track, Roper," said Frank, rejoining Clancy. "I
can't see any one but McGurvin through the window, and he's spelling out
the news in a paper. If Porter was there, he and McGurvin would
certainly be together."

"Not so certainly, Chip." answered Chancy. "Let's look in the corral for
a tired horse. If we find one, then surely it's Porter's, and Porter has
got into the house and gone to bed."

Only one horse and a burro were found, and the horse showed no evidence
of recent hard riding. Frank was deeply puzzled.

"If the prospector came this way," said he, "there would be nothing else
for it but for him to stop here. He wouldn't dare go on into the desert
without foot and water."

"Possibly he stopped, got what he wanted, and went on," Clancy hazarded.

"No, Clan. We can't be much more than half an hour from the mine; if we
suppose that Porter had a full hour the start of us--it couldn't have
been more than that--then he had only an hour and a half to ride here,
and no time to pick up food and water and push