Susan Lenox, Her Fall and Rise

The moon appeared at last and suddenly all the desert lay before them like molten silver. They rose, stiffly, and Charley helped Roger to replace the little pack on Peter. Roger led, Peter followed and Charley brought up in the rear. For hours, they toiled slowly up into the range, flashing their "bugs" into the shadows, stopping now and again to go over rock heap or cactus clump carefully, then on again, neither of them speaking, even to Peter, except to call at irregular intervals Felicia's name.

Dawn found them high in the range, in a little canyon, sweet with a tiny spring about which grew mesquite and bear grass. The black ashes of old fires were there, but nothing else. Roger broke the silence of hours: "We're both going to get a sleep here, then I'm going to take you home. We're way out of the reach of gun sound. They might have found her, you know."

They stood staring about them for a moment and listening. The unutterable silence of the desert was about them. Roger, eyes bloodshot, face unshaven, lips cracked, turned to Charley whose great eyes were sunk in her head, her lip colorless and drawn.

"Come," he said. "I'll cook the bacon and you unpack the rest of the grub. We simply haven't strength to get home without rest and food."

Charley had the remainder of the food ready for Roger when the bacon was cooked. They ate in silence, then Charley lay down on the pack blanket while Roger stretched out in a drift of sand beyond the spring. In utter weariness they both slept, unmindful of danger from snakes or vermin.

It was mid-morning when Roger woke. He sat up with a start and a sudden clear picture in his eyes of a spot in the desert where he had not searched. About a mile from the ranch and perhaps an eighth of a mile west of the trail at the base of the range was a little stone monument. Roger had observed it but it was too small to shelter even Felicia's small frame in its shadows, so he had not troubled to make a close observation of the flat desert round about it. The picture which had awakened him was an extraordinarily vivid one of this monument. He resolved to examine it thoroughly on his way home.

Roger rose stiffly. Charley was lying on her face, her head pillowed on her arm. He moved over and touched her on the shoulder.

"Sorry, Charley," he said, "but we'd better start back."

The girl sat up, slowly. "I wasn't asleep," she said. "I've just been napping off and on. I can't sleep until I know."