th gentle slaps he drove his burro in behind Cameron.
"Yes, I'm old. I'm lonely, too. It's come to me just lately. But,
friend, I can still travel, and for a few days my company won't hurt
you."

"Have it your way," said Cameron.

They began a slow march down into the desert. At sunset they camped
under the lee of a low mesa. Cameron was glad his comrade had the
Indian habit of silence. Another day's travel found the prospectors
deep in the wilderness. Then there came a breaking of reserve,
noticeable in the elder man, almost imperceptibly gradual in Cameron.
Beside the meager mesquite campfire this gray-faced, thoughtful old
prospector would remove his black pipe from his mouth to talk a little;
and Cameron would listen, and sometimes unlock his lips to speak a
word. And so, as Cameron began to respond to the influence of a desert
less lonely than habitual, he began to take keener note of his comrade,
and found him different from any other he had ever encountered in the
wilderness. This man never grumbled at the heat, the glare, the driving
sand, the sour water, the scant fare. During the daylight hours he was
seldom idle. At night he sat dreaming before the fire or paced to and
fro in the gloom. He slept but little, and that long after Cameron had
had his own rest. He was tireless, patient, brooding.

Cameron's awakened interest brought home to him the realization that
for years he had shunned companionship. In those years only three men
had wandered into the desert with him, and these had left their bones
to bleach in the shifting sands. Cameron had not cared to know their
secrets. But the more he studied this latest comrade the more he began
to suspect that he might have missed something in the others. In his
own driving passion to take his secret into the limitless abode of
silence and desolation, where he could be alone with it, he had
forgotten that life dealt shocks to other men. Somehow this silent
comrade reminded him.

One afternoon late, after they had toiled up a white, winding wash of
sand and gravel, they came upon a dry waterhole. Cameron dug deep into
the sand, but without avail. He was turning to retrace weary steps
back to the last water when his comrade asked him to wait. Cameron
watched him search in his pack and bring forth what appeared to be a
small, forked branch of a peach tree. He grasped the prongs of the
fork and held them before him with the end standing straight ou