“High up. Missed the bone and don't amount to much, Tom. But I've bled like a stuck pig and it's weakened me a little.” “I'll heat some water and wash it up, Bill,” said The Youngest Bad Man, much concerned. They made a very small fire of cat-claw and ironwood, brewed a pot of coffee, breakfasted, washed and dressed The Wounded Bad Man's shoulder and slept until late afternoon. They awoke much refreshed, ate an early supper and struck out across the desert to the north, where in time they would come to the Santa Fe tracks. There were lonely stations out there in the sands--they might be worth investigation. Then on to the new mining camp at Old Woman Mountain--a camp which, following the whimsical and fantastic system of desert nomenclature, which seems to trend toward such names as Mecca, Cadiz. Bagdad, Bengal and Siam, had had bestowed upon it the not inappropriate name of New Jerusalem. For a number of reasons The Three Bad Men preferred to travel by night. Primarily they were prowlers and preferred it. Secondly, although one may encounter torrid weather by day on the Colorado Desert even in December, the nights, on the contrary, are bitterly cold--and The Three Bad Men had no blankets. Also there was this advantage about traveling at night and sleeping in the shadow of a rock by day: they would not meet other wanderers and there would he no embarrassing questions to answer respecting the hole in The Wounded Bad Man's shoulder. Consequently The Three Bad Men traveled by night. From Mojave Tanks they swung west to avoid the mining operations there, although more than once they glanced back wistfully at the little cluster of yellow lights shining across the sands. The Wounded Bad Man's shoulder was in a bad way and needed medical attention. Also they needed water; but they were desert-bred and could last until they came to Malapai Springs. So they turned their backs on Mojave Tanks and tramped onward. Now they were in the ghostly moonlight of the open desert, with the outlines of the mountain ranges on each side looming dim and shadowy fifteen or twenty miles away; now they were picking their way carefully through clusters of murderous catclaw, through tangles of mesquit and ironwood. Up dark, lonely arroyos they went; down long alleys between the outstretched arms of the ocatillas with their pendulous, blood-red blossoms, passing dried, withered Joshua trees twisted into fantastic shapes as if their fearful surroundings had caused them to writhe in horror; through solitude and desolation so vast and profound as to inspire one with the thought that the Creator, appalled at the magnitude of this abortion of Nature, had set it apart as an eternal heritage of the damned.