ing and mumbled a rough,
hasty prayer for help. He felt like the old woman who, on being told
that nothing but God could save the ship, exclaimed, "And has it come to
that?" Bud had felt all his life that there was a remote time in every
life when one might need to believe in prayer. The time had come for
Bud.

* * * * *

Margaret, on her knees in the sand of the desert praying for help,
remembered the promise, "Before they call I will answer, and while they
are yet speaking I will hear," and knew not that her deliverers were on
the way.

The sun had been hot as it beat down upon the whiteness of the sand, and
the girl had crept under a sage-bush for shelter from it. The pain in
her ankle was sickening. She had removed her shoe and bound the ankle
about with a handkerchief soaked with half of her bottle of witch-hazel,
and so, lying quiet, had fallen asleep, too exhausted with pain and
anxiety to stay awake any longer.

When she awoke again the softness of evening was hovering over
everything, and she started up and listened. Surely, surely, she had
heard a voice calling her! She sat up sharply and listened. Ah! There it
was again, a faint echo in the distance. Was it a voice, or was it only
her dreams mingling with her fancies?

Travelers in deserts, she had read, took all sorts of fancies, saw
mirages, heard sounds that were not. But she had not been out long
enough to have caught such a desert fever. Perhaps she was going to be
sick. Still that faint echo made her heart beat wildly. She dragged
herself to her knees, then to her feet, standing painfully with the
weight on her well foot.

The suffering horse turned his anguished eyes and whinnied. Her heart
ached for him, yet there was no way she could assuage his pain or put
him out of his misery. But she must make sure if she had heard a voice.
Could she possibly scale that rock down which she and her horse had
fallen? For then she might look out farther and see if there were any
one in sight.

Painfully she crawled and crept, up and up, inch by inch, until at last
she gained the little height and could look afar.

There was no living thing in sight. The air was very clear. The eagle
had found his evening rest somewhere in a quiet crag. The long corn
waved on the distant plain, and all was deathly still once more. There
was a hint of coming sunset in the sky. Her heart sank, and she was
about to give up hope entirely, when, r