It was still cool on the desert when they rode away over the sands at a pace that brought them by nine o’clock to the end of the desert, where a road led away toward the east. There the sands lost themselves in a growth of stunted shrubbery that rose into a higher vegetation the farther they went. But the day grew hotter and hotter. And the brown horse limped more and more. “I’m afraid his foot is infected,” Raquel thought. At last the animal stopped, and would go no farther. Lois was herself exhausted, wilted by the heat. The girls dismounted. Raquel took the saddle off the brown horse, poured some of the precious oil in his foot, bound it so that flies could not get at it, and left him there. He absolutely would not be led another step. “I’ll send back for you tomorrow, old boy, if I can. You can make out without water until then.” She put Lois on the pinto, who by now had become somewhat accustomed to her, and walked by their side over the heavy sand. Lois looked down at Raquel trudging stoutly along and every now and then throwing out a cheerful word. Lois tried to speak, but tears choked her, and she only shook her head and bit her lips. Raquel herself was frightened. Dear Heaven! Were they lost? “Just keep your head, keep your nerve, Rakie, old girl,” she said to herself. Her feet were growing tired. She was not used to walking any great distance. The cowhide sandals that she had exchanged for her boots when she escaped from the mine were not stout enough to protect tender feet from stone bruises, or from the blistering heat of the road. In spite of her indifference to fatigue, the pain of her swelling, burning feet became insistent, unbearable. They stopped again to rest, but when she walked on a bit farther the discomfort was as great as before. “Lois, dear, I guess I’ll get up behind you, and let the pinto give us both a lift for a while.” Paintbrush had never carried a double burden before, and shied a bit at first, but at Raquel’s soothing command trotted obediently ahead. But his pace grew slower and slower under the increased load, and his tender-hearted mistress felt she was asking too much of the faithful animal. So she slipped from his back again when they had gone less than half a mile, and as her foot touched the ground an excruciating pain shot through it. She had stepped on a cactus thorn which had gone right through the tough hide sole of the _tegua_, and imbedded itself in the sole of her foot. At her involuntary cry, Paintbrush stopped dead and turned a startled eye upon his mistress. Lois clambered off his back and ran to Raquel. “Oh, my dear, what have you done? Oh, your poor foot!” Raquel was trying to pull the thorn out through the sole of the sandal. She could not remove the sandal without breaking the thorn off in her foot, when the flesh would close tightly around it.