Two days now until they reached Mexico; two days at the most. He could hardly believe it. He looked up at the sky and wondered what would happen to them. Where would they be in ten years? Still in Mexico, still together? He hoped so. The rule of the expedition was that no one should think of anything but the present. Teddy had made it; he had said, “Let’s not remember anything or plan for anything. Let’s just go along.” Now Blake broke the rule; he wondered how they were acting at that moment in Santa Fé, without him. Mary would be dining with Bob, perhaps, and talking about him. Probably she was being very offhand and modern. He could hear her saying, “He’ll be back before the week is out. I know Blake. He’ll do his sulking and then come back perfectly cheerful.” Oh, he said defiantly to himself, will I? It occurred to him then that he had really heard her saying it. Had some part of him been back there, waiting in the air and listening to Mary? When he said “Will I?” perhaps she had jumped a little, thinking of him saying it just at the time that he did. He followed the idea. Perhaps even though he was standing here on the desert, there was a part or shell of him in that room where he had been, telegraphing. He felt very clear about it, and willing to go on with the speculation. His mind worked better these days. Every mile he went away from school seemed to help. He was almost ready to form a theory that one learned better if one was happy; perhaps in Mexico he might even become interested in algebra. “Yoo-hoo!” Gin was calling him. “Stew-hoo!” He picked up one last twig and went back to the fire, smiling. Teddy was measuring out coffee-grounds to put in the boiling water, and Gin told Blake to cut the bread. They started to eat as fast as they could, though the food was still almost too hot. All of them were wind-burned and peeling, with dry lips from the dust and the sun. They looked bigger, somehow, than they had been when they started out. And yet it had been only four—no, five days, Blake said aloud, since they rode out of Albuquerque. No one answered him, and for a while there was no noise but tin spoons on tin plates. “Ho-ho,” said Teddy, sighing, and stretching out his legs. “I ate too much.” They settled back comfortably, their heads pillowed on rolled blankets. It was getting dark enough to show up a few pale stars. Gin said, “You’re all wrong about not mentioning Santa Fé. It’s the best part of being out here, thinking about town and how nice it is that we’re not back there. I keep wondering how Flo is getting along with the dudes, and then I look around and feel great.” “That’s the way it is with me,” said Blake. “I want to think about it all the time. The old plaza and all that. How do you think it turned out with Phil and the Pearsons?”