e present,
did he care. He recalled that, with Ernest motionless on the floor, the
others had united in denouncing him, that Charley had turned on him with
furious eyes. Then he had fled. Not toward Archer's Springs where he was
known. But with a vague idea of crossing the Colorado into California,
he had turned westward.

He was fleeing not from fear nor from cowardice. He was fleeing because
with the discovery of Ernest's duplicity, the entire edifice of his life
had tumbled into ruins. A great loathing of the desert, of the work he
had attempted there, but most of all, a red hate for Ernest, carried him
across the many burning miles of desert to the foothills of the River
Range. A blind desire to get away from it all, to lose himself forever,
to forget all that he had ever been or known, but above everything to
get away from Ernest was for the time being the motive force of his
existence.

He was carrying a bag of grub and his two gallon canteen which still was
heavy with water. For a moment Roger considered some method of
transferring his burden to the burro's little back. But Peter was so
small, so winded, that he gave up the idea and trudged on to the west.
Peter fell in after him and two scarcely discernible specks on the
immense floor of the mesa they moved toward the black mountain top
lifting before them. There was no sound save that of their own
footsteps. There was no verdure here except the martial figures of the
great cacti, those soldiers of the waste, that guard the eternal
solitudes. There was no wind. Only a breathless sense of brooding in the
remote wonder of the sky. The desert is a hard country; a country to try
out the mettle of a man and leave it all dross or pure gold.

It was starlight when Roger and Peter reached the top of the range.
Beyond dimly lay another range.

Roger resolved to camp for the night in the valley below. Peter was
reluctant to go farther. In fact for the last hour, Roger had been
obliged to lead him. The way down was very precipitous and they had not
covered a third of it when Roger slipped and fell. He did not lose his
grip on the lead rope and at the sudden jerk the little burro pitched
forward after Roger. But Peter got his balance immediately and threw
himself back on his shoulders, bracing his feet against the roots of a
giant cactus and stood fast.

Roger dangled helplessly over a black drop for a few seconds, then with
the aid of the lead rope he crawled up to t