ess. It's your only salvation. Now or never."

"All right. Thanks. A case of forearmed, I suppose."

"Exactly. Now--there she is!"

Samson rose in his stirrups and pointed forward with his crop. Upon
a barren, wide-stretching tableland stood a cluster of adobe huts. Behind
them a clump of live oaks, beside them a sandy, curving streak, an
arroyo, lighter in hue than the surrounding soil, but parched and dry
as if part of the desert itself; behind them, three mighty, jagged,
upward-pointing rocks.

"There she is. The weirdest, lonesomest, God-for-sakenest habitation
that fools ever made or lived in, quoted the joker, giving Samson's hand
a cordial grasp. Hello! What's up captain?"

For Jessica had also caught sight of the desolate homestead and, having
too low stirrups for standing, had sprung to Scruff's back and poised
thus on his saddle, was straining her eager, excited gaze toward the
distant El Desierto.

"My dream! The spot! For once he told the truth! Follow, follow me,
quick!"

"Land of love! She has gone queer, and that's a fact. Does the mite
think that there little donkey can outrun your horse or mine? After her,
stranger, lest she do some harm to herself."

Ninian smiled softly and touched Nimrod lightly, and in a moment all
three were again racing over the mesa, side by side, the girl foremost,
and the men reining in their horses lest they should forestall her of the
goal to which she aspired. The reporter, as eager and almost as wise
as she, but good Samson completely in the dark and growing a trifle angry
over the fact.

When they came up to it the place seemed utterly deserted. The doors
opened to the touch and in all but one of the three small buildings the
windows were broken. The third was in better repair and was evidently
sometimes still used by somebody. There was a bed, or cot, spread with
blankets, a coal-oil stove, some canned meats and biscuits, and a
well-wrapped gun.

But Jessica's attention passed these details over.

"The rocks! They are the very same as in my dream and he told me of them
when he drew the map. Is that in your pocket, Mr. Sharp? Oh! is it?"

"Sure." He drew it forth and held it so that Samson, too, could see.

"Come! In the dream there was a little cave beneath the rocks and in the
cave a box. You know it, Samson, the black tin box in which the valuable
papers were kept. We could find it nowhere, mother nor I, but I shall
find it here and in it--oh! in it--the