n, middle-aged man came slowly in the door and walked
hesitatingly up to Ernest.

"My name is Schmidt," he said. "I saw you at supper. Mr. Werner, he
wrote me you vas coming and asked me to do vat I could for you."

Ernest and Roger shook hands delightedly.

"I come here for my health," Schmidt went on, "and maybe I help you. I
vork for my board."

"We'll see how things are after we get settled," said Roger, carefully.
"Have a cigar and tell me how you came to know Mr. Werner."

"I clerked by a bank he vas interested in," replied Schmidt, settling
himself with the cigar. Roger and Ernest liked him at once, from his
stiff brown pompadour and kindly blue eyes behind his spectacles to his
strong, capable looking hands. Before they parted for the night it was
agreed that Schmidt would come back with them when they came in for the
freight. Austin had warned them that help was almost impossible to get
in the desert and this seemed a wise thing to do.

The sun had not risen the next morning when the three climbed aboard the
heavily laden wagon and started along the trail Hackett had carefully
described for them.

It was not a smooth trail. Even the first eight or ten miles, mentioned
with pride by the baggage man, were cut with draws and strewed with
heavy rocks. But the air was like a northern May. The cactus was full of
singing northern birds preparing for their spring migration. The horses
plodded steadily without urging. The mountains lifted in colors ever
more marvelous and the Adventure seemed to Roger satisfactory beyond
expression.

"I think it's beautiful, Ern," he said at last.

"Gad, I don't," replied Ernest, wiping sand out of his eyes.

"I do!" cried Felicia, jouncing up and down on the wagon seat between
the men. She was powdered white with sand. "Charley will c'lapse when
she sees me."

The horses were used to desert going. The tenderfoot drivers let them
have their own way. Hackett had tried to describe certain landmarks
along the route so that they could gauge the distance covered, but with
small effect on Ernest and Roger. All points of the desert looked alike
to them. They only knew that if they followed the trail north long
enough, they would strike Prebles' late that night.

Just at sundown, however, Roger pulled in the horses. "That trail's
getting awfully faint," he said.

"Sand's drifted like snow across it," agreed Ernest. "In fact, there
hasn't been any trail for the last mile. But we