The Heart of the Desert

"What a clean, dry little room!" exclaimed Rhoda. "Oh, I am so tired and sleepy!"

"Let's look a little farther before we stop. What's on the other side of this broken wall?"

They picked their way across the litter of pottery and peered into another room, the duplicate of the first.

"How will these do for our respective sleeping-rooms?" asked DeWitt.

Rhoda stared at John with horror in her eyes.

"I'd as soon sleep in a tomb! Let's make a fire outside and sleep under the stars. I'd rather have sleep than food just now."

"It will have to be just a tiny smudge, up behind this débris, where Kut-le can't spot it," answered DeWitt. "I won't mind having a red eye of fire for company. It will help to keep me awake."

"But you must sleep," protested Rhoda.

"But I mustn't," answered John grimly. "I've played the baby act on this picnic as much as I propose to. It is my trick at the wheel."

Too weary to protest further, Rhoda threw herself down with her feet toward the fire and pillowed her head on her arm. DeWitt filled his pipe and sat puffing it, with his arms folded across his knees. Rhoda watched him for a moment or two. She found herself admiring the full forehead, the lines of refinement about the lips that the beard could not fully conceal.

"He's not as handsome as Kut-le," she thought wearily, "but he's--he's--" but before her thought was completed she was asleep.

Rhoda woke at dawn and lay waiting for the stir of the squaws about the morning meal. Then with a start she rose and looked soberly about her. Suddenly she smiled.

"Tenderfoot!" she murmured.

DeWitt lay fast asleep by the ashes of the fire.

"If Kut-le," she thought. Then she stopped abruptly and stamped her foot. "You are not even to think of Kut-le any more!" And with her cleft chin very firm she descended the trail to the spring. When she returned, DeWitt was rising stiffly to his feet.

"Hello!" he cried. "I was good this time. I never closed my eyes till dawn. I'm so hungry I could eat greasewood. How do you feel?"

"Weak with hunger but otherwise very well. Go wash your face, Johnny."

DeWitt grinned and started down the trail obediently. But Rhoda laid a detaining hand on his arm. The sun was but a moment high. All the mesa front lay in purple shadows, though farther out the desert glowed with the yellow light of a new day.

"I think animals come to the spring to drink," said Rhoda. "There were tiny wet footmarks there when I went down to wash my face."