A small cavalcade came with leisurely paced gait through the desert, making toward a cool spring which welled in the shade of mesquite shrubbery at the foot of the great table of White Sand. There were perhaps a dozen men and twice as many mules and burros. Don Tiburcio himself rode at the head. His eyes searched the surrounding country, picking out in the mountains beyond certain peaks beneath which lay silver, or so he had been told on his trip north. He wanted to see again, too, the phenomenon of this high white desert, where his men had found water and shade after noon under the low desert palms. For a long time as his cavalcade approached the sands Don Tiburcio was troubled by a dark object which seemed to move about the gypsum desert’s edge, back and forth. He remembered the strange effect of mirage which had so impressed him before and dismissed the apparition as a trick of sun spots, directing his gaze instead eastward. When he looked again with rested eyes the black moving spot was gone and he made a mental note never again to believe one’s eyes on the desert. The sun was sinking lower, yet the heat of the day was little abated. Soon a swift darkness would fall over mountain and plain. Then nothing could be seen. The moon would rise early, however, and they would be on their way to yon mountains in the cool of the night. The white desert before him glowed rose in the dying sun. It seemed stained in blood. The sun lingered a moment over the peaks that bound the plain to the west and then sank below the jagged monoliths with great speed. Yet the moment before it sank there appeared on the rim of the desert above a figure so clear that before it too sank out of sight Don Tiburcio had halloo’d to his men and was halfway up the slope. * * * * * “Estevan, _amigo_; Estevan!” It seemed to Steven Mercer that he had heard a familiar voice commanding him sharply for a long time to wake up, to rouse himself. His eyeballs burned like fire in their sockets. His mouth hurt inside. His skin felt as though every drop of moisture or oil had been burned out of it. Intermittently he felt thus, for cooling streams of water played over his brow. Was that, too, part of the mirage? he wished it might continue. At length he found strength to pull himself together; with an effort he sat up and by the light of a tula fire he recognized Don Tiburcio. This dazed him and for a moment he grappled with memory, then asked rather, wildly, “Where is the boy?” “There.” Don Tiburcio pointed. Doren lay not far from the fire, which showed him dozing, fresh and placid. Juan sat beside him. “He woke,” said Don Tiburcio, “after we had laved him and poured water down him. We have given him burro’s milk, wafers. He fell asleep again immediately. And you, _amigo_, how goes it? The glare of that desert has ever driven men mad.” Don Tiburcio smiled.