I am coming out to see what you and
Truxton are doing. I shall want to have a talk with him--and with you.
You will of course say nothing of what has happened to-night."

Out in the darkness Conniston walked slowly toward the office
building, his brows drawn, his eyes upon the ground, a fear which he
could not argue away in his heart. With untold capital to back them
the fight against the desert was such a fight as most men would not
want upon their hands. With Oliver Swinnerton and the gold behind him
which he was spending with the recklessness of assurance, the fight
was tenfold harder. And now, when it was clear that the great bulk of
John Crawford's fortune was already sunk into the sand, the fight
seemed hopeless.

It had been a bad night for lovers. At the office building, leaning
against the wall, a cigarette dangling dejectedly from his lips,
Lonesome Pete was waiting for him.

"That you, Con?"

"Yes. What are you doing here?"

"Waitin' for you, an' meditatin' mos'ly." He cast away his cigarette,
sighed deeply, and began a search for his paper and tobacco. "I was
wantin' to ask you a question, Con."

Conniston said, "Go ahead, Pete," and made himself a cigarette.

"It's this-a-way." The cowboy lighted a match and let it burn out
without applying the flame to his brown paper. For a moment he
hesitated, and then blurted out: "You've knowed some considerable
females in your time, I take it. Huh, Con?"

"Well?" Conniston repeated.

"I gotta be hittin' the trail back to the Half Moon real soon. I
wanted to ask you a question firs'." Again he hesitated, again broke
out suddenly: "I take it a lady ain't the same in no particulars as a
man. Huh, Con?"

Conniston, thinking of Argyl, said "No," fervently.

"If a man likes you real well you can tell every time, can't you? An'
if he ain't got no use for you, you can tell that, too, can't you?"

Conniston nodded, thinking that he began to guess Pete's troubles.

"Don't you know--can't you tell--how Miss Jocelyn feels toward you,
Pete? Is that it?"

"That's it, only how in blazes you guessed it gets me! Con, I tell
you, I can't tell nothin' for sure. It's worse 'n gamblin' on the
weather. One day I'm thinkin' she likes me real well, an' she shows me
things about grammar an' stuff, an' we git on fine. An' then--maybe
it's nex' day an' maybe it's only two minutes later--she's all
diff'rent somehow, an' she jest makes fun of the way I talk, an' you'd
suppose