Stephen turned his eyes in the direction of the pointing finger. He saw a faint light breaking through the black dome of the sky. As he watched it, it trickled out steadily, like slow-spreading water, filtering slowly through dense banks of clouds, folding them back like the shutter of a giant camera, until the whole eastern sky was a field of gray clouds with frosty edges, between which, coming majestically forward through the green-white billow, appeared finally a moon, big and round and brilliant, casting over the earth a flood of wonderland light, streaming down upon the dunes and flats in mystic sheen, bringing out the desert in soft outline. Near by, the light brought out the form of Pat, standing a short distance off with drooping head, motionless in all the splendor of his perfect outline. Stephen turned back to the man. He found him staring hard at the horse. He did not understand this until the fellow burst out excitedly, his eyes still fixed on Pat. "Whose horse is that?" he demanded. "Tell me. Do you own that black horse?" Stephen slowly shook his head. He thought the question but another expression of the stranger's nervous apprehension due to his experience. Yet he explained. "He belongs back in New Mexico," he said, quietly--"the Rio Grande Valley. He was stolen last spring. Been ridden pretty hard since, I guess. I happen to know where he belongs, though, and I was taking him to a shipping-point when I lost my way. That's the horse you heard nicker a while ago," he added, soothingly. The man sank flat again. "I stole him," he blurted out. "I--I hope you'll get him back where he belongs. His--his name is Pat. He's--he's the best horse I ever rode." He relapsed, into silence, motionless, as one dead. Stephen himself remained motionless. He looked at the man curiously. He believed that he ought to feel bitter toward him, since he saw in him the cause of all his own misery. But somehow he found that he could feel nothing but pity. In this man with eyes closed and gasping lips Stephen saw only a brother-mortal in distress, as he himself was in distress, and he forgave him for anything he had done. He looked at Pat, understanding the temptation, and then turned his eyes pityingly toward the man--the stranger, dozing, murmuring strangely in his sleep. Seeing him at rest, and realizing the long hours before daybreak, Stephen finally dropped over upon one elbow, and prepared to pass the night as best he could. He was suffering torture from his arm and shoulder, and burning with the fever shown in his hot skin and parched lips.