r; he had his own problems. And straightway he forgot his
strange visitor.

Cameron began his day, grateful for the solitude that was now unbroken,
for the canyon-furrowed and cactus-spired scene that now showed no sign
of life. He traveled southwest, never straying far from the dry stream
bed; and in a desultory way, without eagerness, he hunted for signs of
gold.

The work was toilsome, yet the periods of rest in which he indulged
were not taken because of fatigue. He rested to look, to listen, to
feel. What the vast silent world meant to him had always been a
mystical thing, which he felt in all its incalculable power, but never
understood.

That day, while it was yet light, and he was digging in a moist
white-bordered wash for water, he was brought sharply up by hearing the
crack of hard hoofs on stone. There down the canyon came a man and a
burro. Cameron recognized them.

"Hello, friend," called the man, halting. "Our trails crossed again.
That's good."

"Hello," replied Cameron, slowly. "Any mineral sign to-day?"

"No."

They made camp together, ate their frugal meal, smoked a pipe, and
rolled in their blankets without exchanging many words. In the morning
the same reticence, the same aloofness characterized the manner of
both. But Cameron's companion, when he had packed his burro and was
ready to start, faced about and said: "We might stay together, if it's
all right with you."

"I never take a partner," replied Cameron.

"You're alone; I'm alone," said the other, mildly. "It's a big place.
If we find gold there'll be enough for two."

"I don't go down into the desert for gold alone," rejoined Cameron,
with a chill note in his swift reply.

His companion's deep-set, luminous eyes emitted a singular flash. It
moved Cameron to say that in the years of his wandering he had met no
man who could endure equally with him the blasting heat, the blinding
dust storms, the wilderness of sand and rock and lava and cactus, the
terrible silence and desolation of the desert. Cameron waved a hand
toward the wide, shimmering, shadowy descent of plain and range. "I
may strike through the Sonora Desert. I may head for Pinacate or north
for the Colorado Basin. You are an old man."

"I don't know the country, but to me one place is the same as another,"
replied his companion. For moments he seemed to forget himself, and
swept his far-reaching gaze out over the colored gulf of stone and
sand. Then wi