To Average Jones the memory of that day has never been wholly clear. Sodden with weariness, dazzled and muddled by the savage sun-glare, he followed, with eyes fixed, the rhythmically, monotonously moving feet of his leader, through an interminable desert of soft, clogging sand; a desert which dropped away into parched _arroyos_, and rose to scorched _mesas_ whereon fierce cacti thrust at him with thorns and spikes; a desert dead and mummified in the dreadful heat; a lifeless Inferno wherein moved neither beast, bird nor insect. He remembers, dimly, lying as he fell, when the indefatigable captain called a halt, and being wakened in the chill breeze of evening, to see a wall of mountains blocking the advance. Food brought him to his normal self again, and in the crisp air of night he set his face to the task of climbing. Severe as this was upon his unaccustomed muscles, the firm rocks were still a welcome relief after the racking looseness of sand that interminably sank away from foothold. At midnight the wearied pursuers dropped down from a high plateau to a narrow _arroyo_. Here again was sand. Fortunately, this time, for in it footprints stood out clear, illuminated by the white moonlight. They led direct to a side _barranca_. There the pursuers found the camp. It was deserted. Like a hound on the trail, Captain Funcke cast about him. “Here’s where they came in. No—yes—this is it. Confound the cross-tracks!.. Here one of them cuts across the ridge to the _tenaja_ for water. “Wait!... What’s this? Coyote trail? Yes, but... Trail brushed over, by thunder! They didn’t do it carefully enough... Straight for the rocky _mesa_.... That’s it! They made their sneak while Hoff was asleep, probably covering trail behind them, and struck out for the inside desert route to the Tenaja Poquita.” He took a quick look about the camp and picked up an empty canteen. “Of course, they wouldn’t leave him any water.” “Then he’s gone to hunt it,” suggested Average Jones. “Which way?” “You can’t tell which way a tenderfoot will go,” said the hunter philosophically. “If he had any savvy at all he’d follow the old beaten track around by the _arroyo_ to the water-hole. We’ll try it.” On the way, Average Jones noticed his companion stop frequently to examine the sand for something which he evidently didn’t find. “These are fresh footsteps we’re following, aren’t they?” he asked. “Yes. It isn’t that. He went this way all right. But the _tenaja’s_ gone dry.” “How can you tell that?” “No fresh sign of animals going this way. Must have been dry for weeks. Our mining friends have taken what little water there was and left young Hoff to die of thirst,” said the other grimly. “Well, that explains the empty canteen all right.” He turned and renewed his quick progress, leaping from boulder to boulder, between narrowing walls of gray-white rock. Just as Average Jones was spent and almost ready to collapse the leader checked. “Hark!” he whispered.