s bearings and to locate in the grey distance the black
peak which the storekeeper had indicated on his map as the first
landmark and steering-point. He found it readily enough, a dozen miles
off to the south-west, and jogged down the gentle slope toward it, his
hat drawn low to shield his burning eyes. Within an hour the
impression obtruded itself upon his fancies that about him the world
was dead. He did not see a jack-rabbit or a slinking coyote or a bird;
not even a buzzard, that all but ubiquitous, heat-defying bundle of dry
feathers and bones, hung in the sky. Why should a rabbit come hither
where there was no herbage? Why a coyote when his prey shunned these
wastes? Why even the winged scavenger when all animal life fled the
Bad Lands? The man's spirit was oppressed and drooped under the
weariness of the weary land.

It was a tedious day, and more than once he regretted that he had taken
this trail; for it seemed likely, as is so often the case, that the
long way round was the short way home. But he was in for it, and
plugged ahead, longing for the cool of evening. About noon he found
the first water-hole and, what was more, found water in it. It was
ugly, hot stuff, but his horse trotted to it with ears pricked forward
and nostrils a-twitch and drank long and thirstily. Thereafter, though
they came to other spots where there should be water, they found none
until after sunset. Howard drew off the saddle, gave his horse a
handful of barley and staked it out close to the spring. Then he made
his own dinner, had his smoke and threw himself down for a couple of
hours' rest and dozing. It was his intention to travel on in the night
to the next spring, which was some ten miles farther on and which,
because of its location in the centre of a cluster of hills already
clear against the skyline, he was sure he could not miss. It was one
of the map's double-ringed water-holes.

His horse finished its drink and its barley. He heard it shake itself
as a horse does after its sweaty work is done. Without turning his
head he knew where it was going to lie down for a roll. Now he did
turn a little, seeing through the coming dimness of night the four legs
waving in air as the beast struggled to turn over on its back. It was
a new horse, one he had purchased some weeks ago with a number of
others and had not ridden until now; he recalled how, when a boy, he
had shared other youngsters' superstition in connexion