The wagon-box was piled high with the last of our cantaloupe crop. Jessie and I had risen at daylight to pull them. We had been careful to leave a vacant space in the front of the wagon, and this, fitted up with his favorite little chair and plenty of blankets, made a snug harbor for Ralph. The little fellow was wild with excitement and pleasure at the prospect before him. There was room, besides, in the harbor for a well-filled lunch basket, a jug of water, and, if he became tired of walking, for Guard. The dog trotted on beside the wagon, alert and vigilant, until we were well outside of the valley, when, intoxicated, perhaps, by the sight of such boundless miles over which to chase them, he gave himself up to the pursuit of prairie dogs. An entirely futile pursuit in all cases, but Guard seemed unable to understand the hopelessness of it until some miles had been covered and he was panting with fatigue. The wary little creatures always kept within easy reach of their burrows, a fact which Guard did not comprehend until he had scurried wildly through a half-dozen prairie dog towns in succession. But when the conviction did force itself upon him their most insistent and insolent barking was powerless to arrest his further attention. He had learned his lesson. I had put the rifle and a well-filled cartridge-belt into the wagon thinking that I might get a shot at a jack-rabbit or cotton-tail, but Guard's experience impressed me as likely to be mine also should I attempt to kill such small game with a rifle, and I left the gun untouched. The plains were gray with dust and shimmering in the heat. Clouds of the pungent alkali dust were stirred up by the horses' feet and by the wagon wheels--we had oiled the wheels after an extravagant fashion, I'm afraid, for I do not remember that Joe ever used up an entire jar of lard, as we did, for that purpose--and our throats were parched, our faces blistered, and our eyes smarting before half the distance to the camp was passed over. The wind, what little there was of it, seemed but to add waves of heat to the torturing waves of alkali dust. Ralph, after whimpering a little with the general discomfort, curled down in his nest and dropped off to sleep, but there was no such refuge for Jessie and me. "It's a dreadful thing to be poor!" Jessie exclaimed, at last. There was a desolate intonation in her voice, and my own spirits drooped. The horses dropped into a slow walk. "We shall have one advantage over Mr. Wilson, whatever happens," Jessie presently continued. "How is that?" I inquired. It did not look, at the moment, as if we were ever destined to have the advantage of any one. "We shall not find the men at dinner; they will have had their dinners and gone to work again."