d him into
silence.

"You are deserting me," protested Ernest.

"No, I'm not," returned little Felicia Preble. "I like you very much but
I feel as if I'd like to sit in Roger's lap."

And in Roger's lap she sat, while the racing purple shadows on the
yellow desert gradually grew black, until the yellow turned to lavender,
and both gradually merged into a twilight that was silvered by star-glow
before the last crimson disappeared in the west. She sat there long
after Ernest went inside to read, in the same quiet that enwrapped
Roger. It was a strange quiet for Roger; a quiet of sweetness and
content that he had not known since his mother's death. With that warm,
supple little body pressed against him, his mind for once left his work
and paused to ponder on the loneliness of the past sixteen years and on
the thrilling promise of the desert star-glow. No human being can be
completely sane who does not pause at intervals to express the
tenderness that marks humans from animals. But Roger did not know this.

It was six o'clock in the morning when the train pulled in to Archer's
Springs and Ernest, Roger and Felicia alighted. They stood for a moment
in silence after the train pulled out. They were apparently the only
persons awake in the world.

"Where's Charley?" asked Felicia suddenly.

The station door opened and the baggage man, in blue overalls and
jumper, appeared. He was frankly interested in the new arrivals and
answered Ernest's question promptly.

"Preble? Sure! Dick Preble was here the first of the week. Told me he'd
be in next week to meet the little girl. How'd you come a week early,
sissy?"

Felicia's lip was quivering. "I don't know! Aunt Mary put me on the
train and said Charley would meet me."

"Can we telephone them?" asked Ernest.

The baggage man grinned. "Telephone? Boys, come here a minute."

He led them to the other side of the concrete station where the view was
unobstructed by the train shed, and pointed northeast.

"Take a look," he suggested.

The station platform ended in yellow sand. Across an open space were
some one-story buildings; beyond these an indefinite level of sand that
melted, at what distance one could not say, into a line of mountains
that were black and crimson and at last snow-capped against the
translucent blue of the morning sky.

"This road," said the baggage man, "goes along pretty good for eight or
ten miles north, then it's nothing but a wagon track trail. If