The sun had been up for several hours and the desert was already a little heady in its palpitating warmth when Steven and Juan stood beside the bank of gleaming gypsum that rose sheer fifty feet from the plain--a desert within a desert. A light breeze blew off a thin mist-like spray from the wind-carved edges of the sands, so that their mystery was veiled, dazzling. Before them the tracks of feet, human feet both big and little, showed in the trail of burros’ hooves, went on to the edge of a gradual slope ascending the sands, and were lost, while the tracks of the burros turned about and went away back over the desert. Juan stooped, and with his eyes close to the ground examined the tracks intently. When he rose he spread his hands in an eloquent gesture, then folded his blanket tightly about him and stood with uncovered head. “Juan,” Steven demanded, “what do you find? Do you think----?” Juan drew his blanket over his head and spoke solemnly: “The breeds have taken the mules and returned whence they came. That means--no hope. The man? Gone. The child? _Quien sabe!_” Steven threw down his mare’s bridle and, taking the gourd of water from the Indian, he threw it over his own shoulder. “Come.” He strode toward the raised desert before them. “We must find out.” Juan shook his head and sat down with an air of finality. He would not venture upon that cursed place; the evil spirits of the desert inhabited it. It was abhorred by man and beast. If the white man would enter, it must be alone. Perhaps the spirits of the sands would not speak to him with the words that led to madness. Juan would wait on the desert’s brink until Estevan came out. He would need some one then to take his hand and lead him on. Steven saw that to remonstrate was futile. He plunged ahead up the incline and entered the white deadliness alone. He found himself upon a plain that shone like snow and that seemed by the strange magic of mirage to stretch away to the very horizon, to lift to meet the turquoise sky and the azure mountains, so that Juan and the horses and the desert below passed out of the picture; might not have existed. All the world was white and blue enamel, and the air swimming sunlight. Steven tucked under his wide-brimmed hat a dark bit of cambric torn from his sash to shield his eyes from the glare. His gaze swept the expanse before him. Not a footstep marred the snowy whiteness. He looked back suddenly for his own tracks. There were none. He stood alone in his own footsteps and not a sign remained of the way he had come. This filled him with horror. He planted his feet deeply and walked on the sheltered side of ridges that he might leave some trace of his own progress.