"It is nearly three weeks since Mr. Worth left with Texas Joe for San Felipe, Ynez." "Si, Senora." "Do you know how far it is across the Desert to San Felipe?" "Si. I think three--four day, maybe five, Senora." "It will be very hot." "Si, Senora. Las' year my sister's man--Jose--go for San Felipe. No much water. He no come back." "Yes, I remember. What is it your people call The King's Basin Desert? The Hollow of God's Hand, isn't it?" "Si, Senora. La Palma de la Mano de Dios." "I wish they would come." "He come pretty quick, I think. Mebbe so he not start when he think. Mebbe so what you call 'beesness' not let him come," said the Indian woman, soothingly. "But Mr. Worth expected to be back two days ago and he is always on time, you know, Ynez." "Si, Senora. But mebbe so this one time different" "I do wish they would---Look, Ynez, look! There's some one stopping!" A carriage was turning in toward the house. "It is Senor Worth," said the Indian woman. "Someone is with him, Ynez. They have a child." As Jefferson Worth and the Seer came up the walk--the engineer carrying the little girl--Mrs. Worth rose unsteadily to her feet. "Run, quick, Ynez--quick! The lights!" That night when the Seer, with everything possible done for his comfort, had retired, and the baby--bathed and fed--was sound asleep in a child's bed that Ynez had brought from an unused room in the banker's big house and placed in Mrs. Worth's own chamber, Jefferson Worth and his wife crept softly to the little girl's bedside. Silently they looked at the baby form under the snow-white coverlet and at the round, baby face, with the tumbled brown hair, on the pillow. Mrs. Worth clasped her hands in eager longing as she whispered: "Oh, Jeff, can we keep her? Can we?" Jefferson Worth answered in his careful manner: "Did you look for marks on her clothing?" "There was nothing--not a letter even. And all that she can tell of her name is Barba. I'm sure she means Barbara." As she answered, Mrs. Worth searched her husband's face anxiously. Then she exclaimed: "Oh you do want her; you do!" and added wistfully: "Of course we must try to find her folks, but do you think it very wrong, Jeff, to wish--to wish that we never do? I feel as though she were sent to take the place of our own little girl. We need her so, Jeff. I need her so--and you--you will need her, when--" There was a day coming that the banker and his wife did not talk about. Since the birth and death of their one child, Mrs. Worth had been a hopeless invalid.