XXXIII. WILLARD HOLMES RECEIVES HIS ANSWER XXXIV. BATTLING WITH THE RIVER XXXV. NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE XXXVI. OUT OF THE HOLLOW OF GOD'S HAND XXXVII. BACK TO THE OLD SAN FELIPE TRAIL XXXVIII. THE HERITAGE OF BARBARA WORTH ILLUSTRATIONS _Drawn by_ F. GRAHAM COOTES OFTEN AS BARBARA SAT LOOKING OVER THAT GREAT BASIN HER HEART CRIED OUT TO KNOW THE SECRET IT HELD. HE HAD LIFTED THE CANTEEN AND WAS HOLDING IT UPSIDE DOWN. "BUT I DON'T RIDE, YOU KNOW." MORE TO REGAIN HIS COMPOSURE THAN BECAUSE HE WAS THIRSTY, HELPED HIMSELF FROM THE EARTHEN WATER JAR. "ADIOS. TELL BARBARA I'M ALL RIGHT." WITHOUT A WORD--FOR NO WORD WAS NEEDED--THEIR HANDS MET IN A FIRM GRIP. The Winning of Barbara Worth CHAPTER I. INTO THE INFINITE LONG AGO. Jefferson Worth's outfit of four mules and a big wagon pulled out of San Felipe at daybreak, headed for Rubio City. From the swinging red tassels on the bridles of the leaders to the galvanized iron water bucket dangling from the tail of the reach back of the rear axle the outfit wore an unmistakable air of prosperity. The wagon was loaded only with a well-stocked "grub-box," the few necessary camp cooking utensils, blankets and canvas tarpaulin, with rolled barley and bales of hay for the team, and two water barrels--empty. Hanging by its canvas strap from the spring of the driver's seat was a large, cloth-covered canteen. Behind the driver there was another seat of the same wide, comfortable type, but the man who held the reins was apparently alone. Jefferson Worth was not with his outfit. By sending the heavy wagon on ahead and following later with a faster team and a light buckboard, Mr. Worth could join his outfit in camp that night, saving thus at least another half day for business in San Felipe. Jefferson Worth, as he himself would have put it, "figured on the value of time." Indeed Jefferson Worth figured on the value of nearly everything. Now San Felipe, you must know, is where the big ships come in and the air tingles with the electricity of commerce as men from all lands, driven by the master passion of human kind--Good Business--seek each his own. But Rubio City, though born of that same master passion of the race, is where the thin edge of civilization is thinnest, on the Colorado River, miles beyond the Coast Range Mountains, on the farther side of that dreadful land where the thirsty atmosphere is charged with the awful silence of uncounted ages. Between these two scenes of man's activity, so different and yet so like, and crossing thus the land of my story, there was only a rude trail--two hundred and more hard and lonely miles of it--the only mark of man in all that desolate waste and itself marked every mile by the graves of men and by the bleached bones of their cattle.