ic
legends, the younger prophets of Israel, dwellers in the wilderness,
beholders of visions, having their existence in a continual dream,
talkers with God, gifted with strange powers.

Suddenly, at some twenty paces distant from the approaching shepherd,
Presley stopped short, his eyes riveted upon the other.

"Vanamee!" he exclaimed.

The shepherd smiled and came forward, holding out his hands, saying, "I
thought it was you. When I saw you come over the hill, I called you."

"But not with your voice," returned Presley. "I knew that some one
wanted me. I felt it. I should have remembered that you could do that
kind of thing."

"I have never known it to fail. It helps with the sheep."

"With the sheep?"

"In a way. I can't tell exactly how. We don't understand these things
yet. There are times when, if I close my eyes and dig my fists into
my temples, I can hold the entire herd for perhaps a minute. Perhaps,
though, it's imagination, who knows? But it's good to see you again. How
long has it been since the last time? Two, three, nearly five years."

It was more than that. It was six years since Presley and Vanamee had
met, and then it had been for a short time only, during one of the
shepherd's periodical brief returns to that part of the country. During
a week he and Presley had been much together, for the two were devoted
friends. Then, as abruptly, as mysteriously as he had come, Vanamee
disappeared. Presley awoke one morning to find him gone. Thus, it had
been with Vanamee for a period of sixteen years. He lived his life in
the unknown, one could not tell where--in the desert, in the mountains,
throughout all the vast and vague South-west, solitary, strange. Three,
four, five years passed. The shepherd would be almost forgotten. Never
the most trivial scrap of information as to his whereabouts reached Los
Muertos. He had melted off into the surface-shimmer of the desert, into
the mirage; he sank below the horizons; he was swallowed up in the waste
of sand and sage. Then, without warning, he would reappear, coming in
from the wilderness, emerging from the unknown. No one knew him well. In
all that countryside he had but three friends, Presley, Magnus Derrick,
and the priest at the Mission of San Juan de Guadalajara, Father Sarria.
He remained always a mystery, living a life half-real, half-legendary.
In all those years he did not seem to have grown older by a single day.
At this time, Presley knew him to be