Like a vast prayer-rug, sapphire and silken, the poppies stretched to the gray feet of the mountain. Between their southern edge and the clustering summits a row of faded brown, low hills knelt--like brown-robed, withered and weary old men, backs bent, faces hidden between outstretched arms, palms to the earth and brows touching earth within them--in the East's immemorial attitude of worship. I half expected them to rise--and as I watched a man appeared on one of the bowed, rocky shoulders, abruptly, with the ever-startling suddenness which in the strange light of these latitudes objects spring into vision. As he stood scanning my camp there arose beside him a laden pony, and at its head a Tibetan peasant. The first figure waved its hand; came striding down the hill. As he approached I took stock of him. A young giant, three good inches over six feet, a vigorous head with unruly clustering black hair; a clean-cut, clean-shaven American face. “I'm Dick Drake,” he said, holding out his hand. “Richard Keen Drake, recently with Uncle's engineers in France.” “My name is Goodwin.” I took his hand, shook it warmly. “Dr. Walter T. Goodwin.” “Goodwin the botanist--? Then I know you!” he exclaimed. “Know all about you, that is. My father admired your work greatly. You knew him--Professor Alvin Drake.” I nodded. So he was Alvin Drake's son. Alvin, I knew, had died about a year before I had started on this journey. But what was his son doing in this wilderness? “Wondering where I came from?” he answered my unspoken question. “Short story. War ended. Felt an irresistible desire for something different. Couldn't think of anything more different from Tibet--always wanted to go there anyway. Went. Decided to strike over toward Turkestan. And here I am.” I felt at once a strong liking for this young giant. No doubt, subconsciously, I had been feeling the need of companionship with my own kind. I even wondered, as I led the way into my little camp, whether he would care to join fortunes with me in my journeyings. His father's work I knew well, and although this stalwart lad was unlike what one would have expected Alvin Drake--a trifle dried, precise, wholly abstracted with his experiments--to beget, still, I reflected, heredity like the Lord sometimes works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. It was almost with awe that he listened to me instruct Chiu-Ming as to just how I wanted supper prepared, and his gaze dwelt fondly upon the Chinese busy among his pots and pans. We talked a little, desultorily, as the meal was prepared--fragments of traveler's news and gossip, as is the habit of journeyers who come upon each other in the silent places. Ever the speculation grew in his face as he made away with Chiu-Ming's artful concoctions. Drake sighed, drawing out his pipe. “A cook, a marvel of a cook. Where did you get him?” Briefly I told him.