Everyone was Tony’s friend in the little mining town. Therefore everyone was anxious when the thirteenth day came, yet not Tony. With few words (at such times such men do not say much) they selected a dozen from among the town’s bravest and best, and with heavy hearts set out on their journey that was to follow Tony’s trail till they should find him. Down into the hot valley--a-quiver under the summer heat, over a road of powdered alkali, along the Humboldt’s banks--through mile after mile of sagebrush and greasewood--under the glaring, white sun, they rode two and two. And so riding they spoke seldom. When they were nearing the place they knew Tony must have reached the third day out (now more than ten days gone) they saw outlined against the blue--high, high in the air--circling spots of black. Dark things that swept with a majesty of motion that was appalling. Round and round, in great curves half a mile wide, they swam through the ether, and dipped and tilted without so much as the quiver of a wing or other motion than that given by their marvelous self-poise; sailing through mid-air as only a vulture can. They swept and circled over a spot that was awful in its silence under the metallic brightness of the hot August sun. The men looked at each other; looked without speaking--for they understood. So without speech they rode on to the place where the warped irons from the burned wagon lay, and where a gaunt, nearly starved St. Bernard howled over something that had once been his master. He had guarded the dead man through ten hot days--through ten long nights. Bono’s wail sounded long and mournful through the narrow pass where the whistling arrows had found them. Tony had never been neglectful before, and the dog could not understand it. Alas, poor Tony! When Bruno went back to Italy that fall he told Nanna that Tony was dead. And Nanna who came of a race more or less stoical in time of stress did not cry out, but simply shut her sorrow up close in her heart where the others could not see. It had been their secret--hers and Tony’s--and they had guarded it well. Henceforth it would be hers alone. So she gave no sign except such as she might for an old playmate’s death. By and by she married Bruno. What would you? Her father and mother wished it; Bruno loved her; he had money now to provide well for a wife; and there was the little farm that his parents would give him the day when he should bring home his bride. So, after the manner of her kind, she finally yielded to his wooing; and one day they were wed in the little church on the hill where they had both been christened when babies. She bore him children, and was a good mother--a good wife. She lived to be an old woman, and her hair grew streaked with gray; yet to the last day of her life she had a way of falling asleep with the fingers of her left hand slipped under her cheek, and her lips touching the upturned palm. It was her one disloyalty to Bruno.