somethin' he's
swiped from Camp.

"Agin' that, too, the chink had money--an' Len and me was broke. Fer a
year he grubstaked us, and followed us around pocketin' up that a way,
cookin' and such, and livin' for Len and Baby Jean.

"Baby Jean's maw she died when the kid was borned; and everywhere Len
went after she was a year or more he took her. We drifted south--me
and Len and the chink and Baby Jean.

"Up Death Valley way we got wind o' somethin' good. Days and days we
makes it into the land that God forgot, and here and there we pecked
out a little color. Then Len and me we gets a lead, and we leaves the
chink and Baby Jean and drifts on into a country that makes me shiver
yet ta think of.

"We got some gold--quite some. And me"--his voice grew low--"I was
younger then, and mean as dirt. I was high-gradin' on my pardner right
and left. I guess I was always mean; but I've paid the price.

"Then Len he gets onto me, but he holds his tongue. And we make it on
and on into Little Hall, till the sandstorm come.

"Fer nigh onto fifty-nine years I've roamed the desert, pardner, but
I've never seen another storm like that. Days and days she blowed, and
sometimes you couldn't see yer hand before yer face for the flyin'
sand. Someway we gets out of it, the Almighty knows how! But from
that day to this I've never been able to find that place ag'in.

"There was gold there--piles and piles o' gold--and Len he'd found it.
Found it out alone one day before the storm set in. And knowin' I'd
been high-gradin' on him, he kep' this find to 'imself. Then come the
storm, and we fought out just ahead o' death.

"Then Len he keeps tryin' to go back--wants to work long for a big
grubstake, and is quiet and dreams a lot, with Baby Jean in his arms,
and the chink settin' cross-legged lookin' at 'em with his glitterin'
little eyes--half full o' hop, I guess. And I gets onto why Len wants
to drift back there to that land o' dead men's bones, and I watch 'im,
and freeze to 'im continual.

"Len he makes a bluff at this an' that an' the other--him and me and
the chink driftin' from here to there over this part o' the desert, or
hereabouts, scratchin' a little now and ag'in. But Len his heart ain't
in it, I see; and all the time he's tryin' to shake me off, I get it.
But I won't shake.

"Well, Len he ain't no more good after the awful time we went through
up there in that terrible land. He never was a man ag'in after that;