Drill, ye
terrier, drill!"

They quickly dug another long, narrow hole. Then, taking a rude
stretcher, they plodded away in the direction of a dilapidated tent that
appeared to be the only structure left of Benton. Casey entered ahead of
his comrade.

"Thot's sthrange!"

"Wot?" queried McDermott.

"Didn't yez kiver her face whin we laid her down here?"

"Shure an' I did, Casey."

"An' that face has a different look now!... Mac, see here!"

Casey stooped to pick up a little book from the woman's breast. His huge
fingers opened it with difficulty.

"Mac, there's wroitin' in ut!" he exclaimed.

"Wal, rade, ye baboon."

"Oh, I kin rade ut, though I ain't much of a wroiter meself," replied
Casey, and then laboriously began to decipher the writing. He halted
suddenly and looked keenly at McDermott.

"Wot the divil!... B'gorra, ut's to me fri'nd Neale--an' a love
letter--an'--"

"Wal, kape it, thin, fer Neale an' be dacent enough to rade no more."

Lifting Beauty Stanton, they carried her out into the sunlight. Her
white face was a shadowed and tragic record.

"Mac, she wor shure a handsome woman," said Casey, "an' a loidy."

"Casey, yez are always sorry fer somebody.... Thot Stanton wuz a beauty
an' she mebbe wuz a loidy. But she wuz dom' bad."

"Mac, I knowed long ago thot the milk of human kindness hed curdled in
yez. An' yez hev no brains."

"I'm as intilligint as yez any day," retorted McDermott.

"Thin why hedn't yez seen thot this poor woman was alive whin we packed
her out here? She come to an' writ thot letter to Neale--thin she
doied!"

"My Gawd! Casey, yez ain't meanin' ut!" ejaculated McDermott, aghast.

Casey nodded grimly, and then he knelt to listen at Stanton's breast.
"Stone dead now--thot's shure."

For her shroud these deliberate men used strippings of canvas from the
tent, and then, carrying her up the bare and sandy slope, they lowered
her into the grave next to the one of the cowboy.

Again Casey made a sign of the cross. He worked longer at the filling in
than his comrade, and patted the mound of sand hard and smooth. When he
finished, his pipe was out. He relighted it.

"Wal, Beauty Stanton, shure yez hev a cleaner grave than yez hed a
bed.... Nice white desert sand.... An' prisintly no man will ivir know
where yez come to lay."

The laborers shouldered their spades and plodded away.

The wind blew steadily in from the desert seeping the sand in low, thin
sheets. Aftern