Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: Like some land of Heart's Desire (see page 22).] DESERT DUST By EDWIN L. SABIN Author of "How Are You Feeling Now?" etc. ILLUSTRATED BY J. CLINTON SHEPHERD [Illustration: QUINON PROFICIT DEFICIT] PHILADELPHIA GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1921, by Frank A. Munsey Company Copyright, 1922, by George W. Jacobs & Company All rights reserved Printed in U. S. A. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. A Pair of Blue Eyes 9 II. To Better Acquaintance 22 III. I Rise in Favor 36 IV. I Meet Friends 54 V. On Grand Tour 72 VI. "High and Dry" 88 VII. I Go to Rendezvous 102 VIII. I Stake on the Queen 118 IX. I Accept an Offer 131 X. I Cut Loose 145 XI. We Get a "Super" 162 XII. Daniel Takes Possession 181 XIII. Someone Fears 197 XIV. I Take a Lesson 205 XV. The Trail Narrows 223 XVI. I Do the Deed 240 XVII. The Trail Forks 252 XVIII. Voices in the Void 261 XIX. I Stake Again 272 XX. The Queen Wins 286 XXI. We Wait the Summons 300 XXII. Star Shine 314 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Like some land of Heart's Desire (see page 22). Frontispiece "Madam," I Uttered Foolishly, "Good Evening." 85 The Scouts Galloped Onward 280 DESERT DUST CHAPTER I A PAIR OF BLUE EYES In the estimate of the affable brakeman (a gentleman wearing sky-blue army pantaloons tucked into cowhide boots, half-buttoned vest, flannel shirt open at the throat, and upon his red hair a flaring-brimmed black slouch hat) we were making a fair average of twenty miles an hour across the greatest country on earth. It was a flat country of far horizons, and for vast stretches peopled mainly, as one might judge from the car windows, by antelope and the equally curious rodents styled prairie dogs. Yet despite the novelty of such a ride into that unknown new West now being spanned at giant's strides by the miraculous Pacific Railway, behold me, surfeited with already five days' steady travel, engrossed chiefly in observing a clear, dainty profile and waiting for the glimpses, time to time, of a pair of exquisite blue eyes.