and done for; and he knew it. He rose to
his knees steadying himself on his Service axe. Then, it came again,
the silver strip of mountain on the sky line with the cool lakes and
the blue haze, and her face, the face in the Watts' picture of "the
Happy Warrior," weaving the spell, receding from him, drawing him with
the love light in her eyes and the passion kiss on her lips, beckoning,
beckoning; he would rise and follow her from the dead if she beckoned
with that light in her eyes. She was receding _not_ along the trail of
the fleeing Desert runners, but down the dragged track of the body that
had crawled to the foot of a sand bank. Wayland never knew whether he
staggered or crept down the trail of the dragged body away from the
hoof prints of the drovers' horses across the alkali sink; but between
him and the silver strip of mountain on the far skyline, above the
yellow sand so hot to his palms, beckoned her face, the love light in
her eyes, weaving the spell. Then the coyote had bounded into the air,
and the red-combed Desert condors, the scavengers of an outcast world,
rose from their quarry; and Wayland, fevered, delirious, laughing,
crying, kneeled over the body of a man lying on his face with his
bloody hand clutched in death grip round an upright post driven into
the alkali bottoms, a post with a drinking cup hung on the notched
crotch, the Desert sign of a water spring beneath the drifted sands.

Wayland pushed the body aside. The man's face was red-smeared. He was
dead. Wayland had to unlock the clutched fingers from the post.
Somewhere, from the submerged consciousness of forgotten college lore
came memory that the water table lay ten feet deep beneath the Desert
silt. The Ranger slid down the sand drift and was chopping, hacking,
digging, into the side of the bank, thanking God; God _was_ on the job
after all; scooping the sand drift out with his naked hand, burrowing
at the earth as the animals of the wilderness-struggle tear in maddened
thirst for the hidden life beneath the sand death. He heard the suck
and gurgle of the water, not the joyous silver laugh of Northern
springs, but the sullen coming of water compelled; and his lips were at
the sand; drinking, drinking, drinking. Then, he suddenly remembered
her face. He looked up. Gone the silver strip of shining mountain;
gone the mirage of the crystal pool; darkness, velvet pansy darkness of
the Desert night; and an earth bat winged past his