Raquel’s eyes were closed. She did not answer, and Lois fell silent. When night came over the desert it found them both asleep, and covered them with its soothing mantle of darkness. They did not ride that night, though the pinto drooped patiently near, and finally lay down in his saddle, a thing he had never done before. It was the piercing bright ray of the morning sun that sent a shaft of recollection to Raquel’s sleeping brain. She sat up, startled, and called the pinto a trifle wildly. He came running, neighing gratefully. The girls never knew it, but he had had business with a rattlesnake just a few paces away, and his lightning hoofs had left a mangled thing for the coyotes to turn away from. He nickered at Raquel’s call. Lois did not stir from her deep sleep. Raquel hated to wake her, but there was no choice and she shook her insistently. Lois sat up quickly. When she was fully awake Raquel talked over plans for continuing the journey. These were complicated by her swollen foot. She knew she could not endure the pain of walking. “I’ll walk,” Lois insisted. “You know, Raquel, it’s much easier for me to walk than ride. I’m used to walking, truly I am.” Raquel agreed, because, really, there was nothing else to do. Lois gathered some more cactus fruit. They ate these, drank the last of the water from the canteen, and set out, Lois trudging along so bravely that Raquel did not suspect what an effort it was for her to keep pace with Paintbrush’s steady gait. It must have been past ten-thirty when, after two hours or more, they struck a hard road. The path from the desert joined it abruptly. As they turned into it, Raquel looked up and down it and recognized with relief that this was the way she and Georgie had come before, when they were guided by the mine foreman. Fortune was with them, for Raquel knew she could never have found the road again except by stumbling on it as she had. Her spirits rose immeasurably, and Lois’ too, when Raquel told her that they were now on familiar ground. Paintbrush also sensed that they were nearing their goal. Perhaps he knew, for he was almost frisky when the little party halted, and Lois somewhat awkwardly uncinched him and pulled off his saddle and blankets with willing but clumsy hands. “You will not have to walk any more, Lois dear,” Raquel said. “Paintbrush will carry us both the last three miles to El Escondido.” They rested a full hour, for Lois was not so hardy a walker as she liked to believe. Then the two girls saddled the pinto again, Lois lifting on the heavy saddle and buckling the cinches with much effort after Raquel had smoothed the blanket. Lois climbed to the saddle, with the aid of Raquel’s boosting, and Raquel pulled herself on behind. Thus it was they covered the last blistering miles.