ir American
neighbour. "He can't say a word--only point and make signs."

"But where does he come from?"

"Over yonder," said the American, nodding south-east. "I caught sight
of him when I first woke this morning, ever so far away, and then forgot
all about him for hours, when I saw him again, and he had crawled
nearer, about a hundred yards an hour, I should say. He looked so queer
that I went over to him, and tried, as soon as I had got over the first
look, to find out who and what he was."

"Well," said Christopher eagerly; "who is he?"

"You know as much as I do, squire, and that's nothing," was the reply;
"but I guess."

"Yes: what?" cried Ned.

"Strikes me, young sir, that, he's some poor chap who has been regularly
swallowed up in the great desert of salt plains over yonder. Lost his
way, and his wits too, seemingly. Lots have been in my time."

"What, crossing the plains?" said Chris.

"Yes. It's like getting into quicksands. I never knew of any one
before getting back again after once getting well in. It's going
straight away to death to go there. This one's crawled out, poor chap,
but it's only to die. Look at him; he's as good as dead now, all but
his eyes."

"Yes, it is horrible," said Ned, in a voice hardly above a whisper.
"How can anybody be so foolish as to go?"

"Ah, that's it," said the American, with a harsh chuckle. "They've seen
yellow, or fancied they have, and been dreaming about it till it's too
much for them, and away they go--mad."

"Yellow?" said Chris wonderingly. "I don't understand you."

"He's making fun of us, Chris."

"Not a bit of it, my lad," said the American. "I mean it. He's had the
yellow fever badly. I had an awful fit of it when I first came out here
and took up land to grow things that won't grow. There were plenty of
old settlers and people here in those days, who had come cram full of
stories about the salt desert yonder and what it hid. They said that
the old mission fathers who first came here to travel about among the
Indians discovered an old city there, half buried in the drifting sand,
and beyond it two great hills. They said that there was a great
treasure in the city, left by the old people who had lived there, and
that the hills beyond were of solid gold, waiting for any one who would
risk all there was to meet and go. They said he'd come back the richest
man in the world--if he did come back at all."

"And did anybody go?" said C