s who had
seen the same thing. They pointed west and south.

Surely there was a caravan--a phantom caravan! Far off, gigantic,
looming and lowering again, it paralleled the advance of their own
train, which in numbers it seemed to equal. Slowly, steadily,
irresistibly, awesomely, it kept pace with them, sending no sign to
them, mockingly indifferent to them--mockingly so, indeed; for when the
leaders of the Wingate wagons paused the riders of the ghostly train
paused also, biding their time with no action to indicate their intent.
When the advance was resumed the uncanny _pari passu_ again went on, the
rival caravan going forward as fast, no faster than those who regarded
it in a fascinated interest that began to become fear. Yonder caravan
could bode no good. Without doubt it planned an ambush farther on, and
this sinister indifference meant only its certainty of success.

Or were there, then, other races of men out here in this unknown world
of heat and sand? Was this a treasure train of old Spanish _cargadores_?
Did ghosts live and move as men? If not, what caravan was this, moving
alone, far from the beaten trail? What purpose had it here?

"Look, mother!"

The girl's voice rose eagerly again, but this time with a laugh in it.
And her assurance passed down the line, others laughing in relief at the
solution.

"It's ourselves!" said Molly. "It's the Fata Morgana--but how marvelous!
Who could believe it?"

Indeed, the mirage had taken that rare and extraordinary form. The
mirage of their own caravan, rising, was reflected, mirrored, by some
freak of the desert sun and air, upon the fine sand blown in the air at
a distance from the train. It was, indeed, themselves they saw, not
knowing it, in a vast primordial mirror of the desert gods. Nor did the
discovery of the truth lessen the feeling of discomfort, of
apprehension. The laughter was at best uneasy until at last a turn in
the trail, a shift in the wizardry of the heat waves, broke up the
ghostly caravan and sent it, figure by figure, vehicle by vehicle, into
the unknown whence it had come.

"This country!" exclaimed Molly Wingate's mother. "It scares me! If
Oregon's like this--"

"It isn't, mother. It is rich and green, with rains. There are great
trees, many mountains, beautiful rivers where we are going, and there
are fields of grain. There are--why, there are homes!"

The sudden pathos of her voice drew her mother's frowning gaze.

"There, there, c