She rode across the wind, doggedly, crying Barney's name. A nameless hopelessness began to grow upon her. Now this way, now that, she urged her horse. How far could Barney hear her calling? How far could he wander? How far would she ride? There were forty miles in length and fifteen in width of this reek of wind-driven alkali. God keep them if ever they got more than two miles away from the Hole! It was aimless riding, presently, but she still persisted. A sickening conviction that Barney and the little captive would both be dead before she could find them made her desperation unendurable. With eyes starting hotly, with every breath seeming like a struggle for existence, in the dust, she galloped, calling, calling, till at last she could call no more. Dazed, she halted her horse at last, and sat staring blindly at nothing. The pony turned about, unheeded, and began to fight his way against the storm, his head down between his legs. Sally's head also came down, by instinct more than by design. She felt past thinking. For a time she rode thus, heedlessly. Then abruptly she clutched at the reins and drew the horse to a halt. The animal pricked up his ears peculiarly. Weirdly out of the wind and dust came a sound--not a moan, not a croon, but like them both, yet a song, uncertain, apparently coming from no definitive point. She even caught the words: "All on some lonesome bill-din The swallow makes her nest; All on some--lonesome bill-din The--swallow makes--her nest." Sally tried to call out. She made but a croaking noise. Slipping from her horse's back, she groped her way forward, leading the pony, and trying to shout. For a rod or more she battled against the driving dust, then halted as before. Not another sound would the desert render up--only the strange dry swishing by of the particles of stuff rasping the desert's surface as they passed and rose. "Barney!" she called, by a mighty effort. There was no response. Crying now, in her anguish and plight, she led the pony this way and that, up and down, listening, trying to force a shout through her swollen lips. At length, in despair, she knew she could search no more. A lifelessness of feeling was creeping upon her. Mechanically she walked beside her pony, and it was the animal that was leading. It seemed as if she had plodded onward thus for hours, when at length she stumbled upon a gray little mound in the drifting alkali. "Barney!" she said, in a voice scarcely more than a whisper. Crooning and sobbing, she lifted him up--unconscious, but clinging to the still, little form that was hugged to the shelter of his breast. "Hang on--oh, hang on to the horse, dear, please," she coaxed, in all the tender strength of a new-born love. "Barney--try--try, dear, please. I'll be your wife--I'll do anything--if only you'll try."