e of consciousness dipping suddenly
down to the sublimal reservoirs of unconscious strength that lie in
humanity; but then, Wayland had left two factors of explanation untold:
first, that the dying trumpet call of the old warrior missionary had
opened the doors of consciousness to that night on the Ridge of the
Holy Cross; second, that the setting sun tinging all the buttes and
hummocks and plains with rose flame somehow tinctured his being with
consciousness of her, consciousness of the life drafts he had taken
from her lips that night of the Death Watch.

He went across to the pack trees. Picking up the cross trees and
blankets, he laid them on the ground as a pillow.

"If you will rest here, sir, I'll go above and have a look."

From the top of the sand bank, the Ranger looked down to see the old
man lying with his face to the sky, his head pillowed on the saddle
blankets, sound asleep. He looked across the Desert. The sun had sunk
behind the azure strip of the mountain sky line. The billows of lava,
black and glazed, the ashy silt pink-tinged to the sun-glow, the
heaving orange sands . . . lay palpitating infinite almost with a
oneness that was of God. Wayland was not given to prayers. Perhaps,
like all men of action, he tried to make his life a prayer. Somehow,
something within him prayed wordlessly now . . . not for exceptional
advantage in the game of life, not for remission of the laws of Nature,
not for miracle, but for aptitude to play the game according to rules.
His wordless prayer did not end in an "amen." It ended in a little
hard laugh. As though Right were such a simple business as just
personally being good! or an insurance policy against damnation and
guarantee for salvation! What was it the old man had said? Your right
must be made into might . . . that was the game of life: the saving of
the Nation: the good old-fashioned square deal no matter which party
cut the cards. Right made Might, Might made Right; that was what the
Nation wanted!

Then, it came again, the touch, the consciousness, the will to power,
to do, to fight and overcome. He rose and looked across the Desert. A
puff of dust, a swirl and eddy of riders, resolved itself through the
terra cotta mist to the forms of three men going over the crest of the
sand roll against the red sun-wrack of the sky line; three figures far
apart, riding slowly, crawling against the face of the distant sky; one
man in advance bent over h