After they had bathed and slipped on their freshened clothes they felt much better. Lois let down her long hair, and brushed it out. In the rich light of the setting sun it looked like a web of purest gold. But her thin skin was cracked and blistered from the unaccustomed exposure, while Raquel’s face was like velvet, well nourished from within. Raquel remembered a tiny bottle of olive oil in her saddle bag, and she had Lois rub some over her lips and face. She went off into the desert a little way and came back with a small bundle of amole root. “I pulled this out,” she said, “and we’ll put a bit in water. You try it and see how soft it is. It’s soapweed, you know, and better than any soap I ever saw.” She lined a little hollow in the earth with stones that were hot from the sun, and in a few moments there was a basin of foamy water. Lois bathed her hands gratefully. “Oh, it’s like velvet.” They ate sandwiches of crackers and cheese and guava paste. Lois ate with effort, although the first food she had eaten in days, she said, was what Raquel had given her that day. “There was no one to fix it,” she explained. “You’ve got to get over that,” Raquel remarked dryly. “If we should get separated I don’t aim to come back and find you all in with starvation because you are too proud, or too lazy, or something, to fix yourself something to eat.” “Separated?” Lois exclaimed. “Don’t leave me a minute, Raquel.” Lois was not angry at the rebuke, only surprised at the idea of getting food for herself. “I--I didn’t feel like eating,” she excused herself. “I’ve never ridden very far before. Couldn’t we stay here tonight?” Raquel said nothing for a moment, then answered sternly, “Lois, we can’t stop at a good hotel till we feel like going on. There’s no choice. We’ve got to go now. I’ve got to get back to my mother and take her son back to her; that’s the least I can do. She’s back home not knowing what has become of me and my kid brother. Her husband and other sons are at war. She’s alone. We haven’t enough food or fresh water to last another day. Another hot day in the desert would mean--well, we can’t do it.” And without another word she got up and saddled the horses methodically, for the sun had already set and a baby moon was far up in the sky. In silence she helped Lois to her feet and upon the horse’s back, then quickly mounted Paintbrush and made for the narrowest part of the widespread stream. The pinto examined the bottom carefully, withdrew from two places that he did not like, and finally picked the widest part of the meandering river as his choice for fording.