ncing dizzily before him. The weariness of the long
night pressed upon his eye-balls; he felt the strain of the past hours,
the lack of food, the need of rest. His head nodded, and he brought
himself to life again with a jerk and a muttered word, staring out into
the dim, formless distance. Lord, if there was only something moving;
something he could concentrate his attention upon; something to rest the
straining eyes!

But there was nothing, absolutely nothing--just that seemingly endless
stretch of sand, circled by the blazing sky, the wind sweeping its
surface soundless, and hot, as though from the pits of hell; no stir, no
motion, no movement of anything animate or inanimate to break the awful
monotony. Death! it was death everywhere! his aching eyes rested on
nothing but what was typical of death. Even the heat waves seemed
fantastic, grotesque, assuming spectral forms, as though ghosts beckoned
and danced in the haze, luring him on to become one of themselves. Keith
was not a dreamer, nor one to yield easily to such brain fancies, but
the mad delirium of loneliness gripped him, and he had to struggle back
to sanity, beating his hands upon his breast to stir anew the
sluggish circulation of his blood, and talking to the horse in strange
feverishness.

With every step of advance the brooding silence seemed more profound,
more deathlike. He got to marking the sand ridges, their slight
variations giving play to the brain. Way off to the left was the mirage
of a lake, apparently so real that he had to battle with himself to keep
from turning aside. He dropped forward in the saddle, his head hanging
low, so blinded by the incessant sun glare he could no longer bear the
glitter of that horrible ocean of sand. It was noon now--noon, and he
had been riding steadily seven hours. The thought brought his blurred
eyes again to the horizon. Where could he be, the man he sought in the
heart of this solitude? Surely he should be here by now, if he had left
the water-hole at dawn. Could he have gone the longer route, south to
the Fork? The possibility of such a thing seared through him like a hot
iron, driving the dulness from his brain, the lethargy from his limbs.
God! no! Fate could never play such a scurvy trick as that! The man
must have been delayed; had failed to leave camp early--somewhere ahead,
yonder where the blue haze marked the union of sand and sky, he was
surely coming, riding half dead, and drooping in the saddle