onsumed in the petty affairs attendant upon such a
campaign. When his three old partners went away to their work at four
o'clock in the afternoon, a wire had come from far out north that a man
who was competent to run the line was starting for Goldite forthwith.

The moonless night, at ten o'clock, found Van alone at his tent. From
the top of the hill whereon he had camped a panoramic view of all the
town swung far in both directions. The glare of the lamps, the noise
of life--even the odor of man upon the air--impinged upon his senses
here, as he sat before the door and gazed far down upon it. He thought
that man with his fire, smells, and din made chaos in a spot that was
otherwise sacred to nature.

He thought of the ceaseless persistence with which the human family
haunts all the corners of the earth, pursues life's mysteries, invades
its very God. He thought of this desert as a place created barren,
lifeless, dead, and severe for some inscrutable purpose--perhaps even
fashioned by the Maker as His place to be alone. But the haunter was
there with his garish town, his canvas-tented circus of a day, and God
had doubtless moved.

How little the game amounted to, at the end of a man's short span!
What a senseless repetition it seemed--the same old comedies, the same
old tragedies, the same old bits of generosity, and greed, of weakness,
hope, and despair! Except for a warm little heartful of love--ah
_love_! He paused at that and laughed, unmirthfully. That was the
thing that made of it a Hades, or converted the desert into heaven!

"Dreamers! dreamers--all of us!" he said, and he went within to flatten
down his blankets for the night.

He had finally blown out his candle and stretched himself upon the
ground, to continue his turmoil of thinking, when abruptly his sharp
ear caught at a sound as of someone slipping on a stone that turned,
just out upon the slope. He sat up alertly.

Half a minute passed. Then something heavy lurched against the tent,
the flap was lifted, and a man appeared, stooped double as if in pain.

"Who's there?" demanded Van. "Is that you, Gett?" He caught up his
gun, but it and the hand that held it were invisible.

"It's me," said a voice--a croaking voice. "Matt Barger."

He fell on the floor, breathing in some sort of anguish, and Van struck
a match, to light the candle.

The flame flared blindingly inside the canvas whiteness. A great,
moving shadow of Van was proje