cried the doctor, "for five years of unburied hope and
looking forward to the future. Here, boys, you ought to give a cheer.
Who'll lead?"

No one: the moments were too sad, for there seemed to be a thick black
veil hanging before them right in front, and neither dared to think of
what might be to come.

Onward, onward into the future, with the wilderness unseen waiting to
swallow up the adventurers in the unknown way--the perils to be
encountered happily hidden from them as yet.

CHAPTER NINE.

A NIGHT SCARE.

It had been decided that they should make for the farthest part known to
them south and west, where the wildest country lay, and they had been
twice before, Griggs having paid double that number of visits in search
of game. There the cultivation ceased entirely, for the rich soil gave
place to sage-brush and a far-stretching tract of salt or alkali desert,
Griggs proposing that they should cross this, for after a good deal of
questioning the settlers in that direction, he elicited the information
that one of the settlers upon the verge of the good lands had seen a
strange-looking tramp, as he called him, pass his lonely shanty one
evening, but feeling no desire for any such company he had stood back
among the trees, and his place had certainly not been seen by the
stranger.

"That shows we should be a bit nearer where he came from," said Griggs,
"and it would be a fair day's journey for a beginning. We could find a
spot to camp out for the night, and start early the next morning to see
if we could not cross the bad land before dark."

"How far would it be?" asked Bourne.

"Ah, that we must find out from the man who lives nearest to the edge,"
replied Griggs. "He's pretty sure to have been some distance into the
desert shooting, and even if he doesn't know he'll be able to tell us
where we can find water, for that's what we must always go by. When
it's too far off for a day's journey we must take our bottles and the
little casks full."

The mules soon steadied down; the day was hot, but not unpleasantly so,
and after crossing a very wild patch some miles in extent they picked up
a track and followed it, to come upon cultivated land again, and the
track led them to a shanty built upon the bank of a river also dried
into a series of pools; but as they approached the house and obtained a
near inspection of the cultivated ground it became very plain that no
hoe had been between the rows of fruit-