ell to set down exactly of
what that breakfast consisted. It consisted of slap jacks made with
water sediment. Both men were afraid to draw on the water from the
skin bag for tea.

They passed dead pools that day, places where Desert travellers had
stuck up posts to mark a spring; but where the Service axe failed to
find water below the saline crust. Then, Wayland knew why the sulphur
dust drift moved so slowly against the horizon. The outlaws _had not_
found water. Horses and men were fagging. A velveteen coat had been
thrown aside to lighten weight; from the dust markings one horse seemed
to have fallen; and the load had been lightened still more by casting
off half sacks of flour and some canvas tenting; but the tracks of the
lame horse picking the soft places along the trail showed drops of
blood. Had it cut itself on the glassy lava rocks; or was it the hoof?
A little farther ahead, the same horse had fallen again to its knees,
rolling over headlong; and the other tracks doubled back confusedly
where the riders had come to help.

The Ranger smiled, though the yellow heat danced in blood clots before
his blistered vision. He had had to put the old frontiersman back on
his horse three times. The stirrup was wrong; or the saddle was
slipping; or . . . what alarmed Wayland was each time he had stopped,
the old man was stooping as if to follow the wavering outline of
invisible water. Then, when the Ranger tried to count how many days
they had been out, he found he couldn't. He had lost track: the days
had slipped into nights and the nights into days; and he suddenly
realized that his head pounded like a steel derrick; that the crackling
of the dry sage brush leaves snapped something strung and irritable in
his own nerves. There was no longer a drowsy hum in his ears. It was
a wild rushing.

Once, the horses shuffled to a dead stop. Wayland looked up from the
dancing sand at his feet. He rubbed his eyes and looked again.

"I keep thinking I see a white horse lagging behind that dust drift.
What puzzles me is whether they are trying to _get out_ of the Desert
or _lose_ us in it. While we are seeing them, you can bet they are
seeing us! There hasn't been a yard for a mile back, where the hoof
tracks weren't bloody. They'll lose a horse if they keep on to-day:
then, they'll be without a packer; but if they are plumb up against it,
why don't they face round and fight? They are three to our two? They