heir southern edge and
the clustering summits a row of faded brown, low hills knelt--like
brown-robed, withered and weary old men, backs bent, faces hidden
between outstretched arms, palms to the earth and brows touching earth
within them--in the East's immemorial attitude of worship.

I half expected them to rise--and as I watched a man appeared on one of
the bowed, rocky shoulders, abruptly, with the ever-startling suddenness
which in the strange light of these latitudes objects spring into
vision. As he stood scanning my camp there arose beside him a laden
pony, and at its head a Tibetan peasant. The first figure waved its
hand; came striding down the hill.

As he approached I took stock of him. A young giant, three good inches
over six feet, a vigorous head with unruly clustering black hair; a
clean-cut, clean-shaven American face.

"I'm Dick Drake," he said, holding out his hand. "Richard Keen Drake,
recently with Uncle's engineers in France."

"My name is Goodwin." I took his hand, shook it warmly. "Dr. Walter T.
Goodwin."

"Goodwin the botanist--? Then I know you!" he exclaimed. "Know all
about you, that is. My father admired your work greatly. You knew
him--Professor Alvin Drake."

I nodded. So he was Alvin Drake's son. Alvin, I knew, had died about a
year before I had started on this journey. But what was his son doing in
this wilderness?

"Wondering where I came from?" he answered my unspoken question. "Short
story. War ended. Felt an irresistible desire for something different.
Couldn't think of anything more different from Tibet--always wanted to
go there anyway. Went. Decided to strike over toward Turkestan. And here
I am."

I felt at once a strong liking for this young giant. No doubt,
subconsciously, I had been feeling the need of companionship with my own
kind. I even wondered, as I led the way into my little camp, whether he
would care to join fortunes with me in my journeyings.

His father's work I knew well, and although this stalwart lad was unlike
what one would have expected Alvin Drake--a trifle dried, precise,
wholly abstracted with his experiments--to beget, still, I reflected,
heredity like the Lord sometimes works in mysterious ways its wonders to
perform.

It was almost with awe that he listened to me instruct Chiu-Ming as to
just how I wanted supper prepared, and his gaze dwelt fondly upon the
Chinese busy among his pots and pans.

We talked a little, desultorily, as the meal