rogress. Long, slender arms of the ocotillo encroached upon the road;
broad, round leaves did likewise; fluted columns, fallen like timbers
in a forest, lay along the narrow margins; the bayonet cactus and the
bisnagi leaned threateningly; clusters of maguey, shadowed by the huge,
looming saguaro, infringed upon the highway to Mezquital. And every
leaf and blade and branch of cactus bore wicked thorns, any one of which
would be fatal to a tire.

It came at length, the bursting report. The car lurched, went on like
a crippled thing, and halted, obedient to the master hand at the wheel.
Swift as Link was in replacing the tire, he lost time. The red sun, more
sullen, duskier as it neared the black, bold horizon, appeared to mock
Madeline, to eye her in derision.

Link leaped in, and the car sprang ahead. The road-bed changed, the
trees changed--all the surroundings changed except the cactus. There
were miles of rolling ridges, rough in the hollows, and short rocky bits
of road, and washes to cross, and a low, sandy swale where mesquites
grouped a forest along a trickling inch-deep sheet of water. Green
things softened the hard, dry aspect of the desert. There were birds and
parrots and deer and wild boars. All these Madeline remarked with clear
eyes, with remarkable susceptibility of attention; but what she strained
to see, what she yearned for, prayed for, was straight, unobstructed
road.

But the road began to wind up; it turned and twisted in tantalizing
lazy curves; it was in no hurry to surmount a hill that began to assume
proportions of a mountain; it was leisurely, as were all things in
Mexico except strife. That was quick, fierce, bloody--it was Spanish.

The descent from that elevation was difficult, extremely hazardous, yet
Link Stevens drove fast. At the base of the hill rocks and sand all but
halted him for good. Then in taking an abrupt curve a grasping spear
ruined another tire. This time the car rasped across the road into the
cactus, bursting the second front-wheel tire. Like demons indeed Link
and Nels worked. Shuddering, Madeline felt the declining heat of the
sun, saw with gloomy eyes the shading of the red light over the desert.
She did not look back to see how near the sun was to the horizon. She
wanted to ask Nels. Strange as anything on this terrible ride was the
absence of speech. As yet no word had been spoken. Madeline wanted to
shriek to Link to hurry. But he was more than humanly swift in all