When the match flickered and went out, and the darkness of the desert reigned again, Morgan sank back with a tremulous, satisfied sigh. "I'm goin' now," he said; "I'm goin'--knowin' God has been good to me." He breathed fast, gaspingly. And for a moment he spoke hurriedly, as though fearful he would not be given time to say what he wanted to say: "Someone plugged me--last night while I was sleepin'. Shot me in the chest--here. Didn't give me no chance. There was three of them. My fire had gone out an' I couldn't see their faces. Likely Laskar an' Dolver was two. The other one must have sloped. It was him shot me. Tried to knife me, too; but I fought him, an' he broke away. It happened behind a rock--off to the left--a red boulder. "I grabbed at him an' caught somethin'. What it was busted. I couldn't wait to find out what it was. I'm hopin' it's somethin' that'll help you to find out who the man was. I ain't goin' to be mean--just when I'm dyin'; but if you was to look for that thing, find it, an' could tell who the man is, mebbe some day you'd find it agreeable to pay him for what he done to me." He became silent; no sound except his fast, labored breathing broke the dead calm of the desert night. "Somethin' more than the gold an' Barbara back of it all," he muttered thickly, seeming to lapse into a state of semiconsciousness in which the burden that was upon his mind took the form of involuntary speech: "Somethin' big back of it--somethin' they ain't sayin' nothin' about. But Harlan--he'll take care of--" He paused; then his voice leaped. "Why, there's Barbara now! Why, honey, I thought--I--why----" His voice broke, trailing off into incoherence. After a while Harlan rose to his feet. An hour later he found the red rock Morgan had spoken of--and with a flaming bunch of mesquite in hand he searched the vicinity. In a little depression caused by the heel of a boot he came upon a glittering object, which he examined in the light of the flaming mesquite, which he had thrown into the sand after picking up the glittering object. Kneeling beside the dying flame he discovered that the glittering trifle he had found was a two- or three-inch section of gold watch chain of peculiar pattern. He tucked it into a pocket of his trousers. Later, he mounted Purgatory and fled into the appalling blackness, heading westward--the big black horse loping easily. The first streaks of dawn found Purgatory drinking deeply from the green-streaked moisture of Kelso's water-hole. And when the sun stuck a glowing rim over the desert's horizon, to resume his rule over the baked and blighted land, the big black horse and his rider were traveling steadily, the only life visible in the wide area of desolation--a moving blot, an atom behind which was death and the eternal, whispered promise of death. CHAPTER III A GIRL WAITS