of their absence would be made. He heard the listless,
half-querulous discussion about the locality that regularly pervaded
the nightly camp. He heard the discontented voice of Jake Silsbee as he
halted beside the wagon, and said, "Come out o' that now, you two, and
mighty quick about it." He heard the command harshly repeated. He saw
the look of irritation on Silsbee's dusty, bearded face, that followed
his hurried glance into the empty wagon. He heard the query, "What's
gone o' them limbs now?" handed from wagon to wagon. He heard a few
oaths; Mrs. Silsbee's high rasping voice, abuse of himself, the hurried
and discontented detachment of a search party, Silsbee and one of the
hired men, and vociferation and blame. Blame always for himself, the
elder, who might have "known better!" A little fear, perhaps, but he
could not fancy either pity or commiseration. Perhaps the thought upheld
his pride; under the prospect of sympathy he might have broken down.

At last he stumbled, and stopped to keep himself from falling forward on
his face. He could go no further; his breath was spent; he was dripping
with perspiration; his legs were trembling under him; there was
a roaring in his ears; round red disks of the sun were scattered
everywhere around him like spots of blood. To the right of the trail
there seemed to be a slight mound where he could rest awhile, and yet
keep his watchful survey of the horizon. But on reaching it he found
that it was only a tangle of taller mesquite grass, into which he sank
with his burden. Nevertheless, if useless as a point of vantage, it
offered a soft couch for Susy, who seemed to have fallen quite naturally
into her usual afternoon siesta, and in a measure it shielded her from a
cold breeze that had sprung up from the west. Utterly exhausted himself,
but not daring to yield to the torpor that seemed to be creeping over
him, Clarence half sat, half knelt down beside her, supporting himself
with one hand, and, partly hidden in the long grass, kept his straining
eyes fixed on the lonely track.

The red disk was sinking lower. It seemed to have already crumbled away
a part of the distance with its eating fires. As it sank still lower,
it shot out long, luminous rays, diverging fan-like across the plain,
as if, in the boy's excited fancy, it too were searching for the lost
estrays. And as one long beam seemed to linger over his hiding-place,
he even thought that it might serve as a guide to Silsbe