The tracks grew deeper, more dragging, wavering from side to side. Here the man had fallen. Adam saw the imprints of his hands and a smooth furrow where evidently he had dragged a canteen across the sand. Then came the telltale signs of where he had again fallen and had begun to crawl. “Looks like the old story,” muttered Adam. “I’ll just about find him dying or dead.... Better so--for that woman who called him husband!... I wonder--I wonder.” Adam’s year of wandering had led him far from the haunts of men, along the lonely desert trails and roads where only a few solitary humans like himself dared the elements, or herded in sordid and hard camps; but, nevertheless, by some virtue growing out of his strife and adversity, he had come to sense something nameless, to feel the mighty beat of the heart of the desert, to hear a mourning music over the silent wastes--a still, sad music of humanity. It was there, even in the gray wastelands. He strode on with contracted eyes, peering through the hot sunlight. At last he espied a moving object. A huge land turtle toiling along! No, it was a man crawling on hands and knees. CHAPTER XV Adam ran with the strides of a giant. And he came up to a man, ragged and dirty, crawling wearily along, dragging a canteen through the sand. “Say, hold on!” called Adam, loudly. The man halted, but did not lift his head. Adam bent down to peer at him. “What ails you?” queried Adam, sharply. “Huh!” ejaculated the man, stupidly. Adam’s repeated question, accompanied by a shake, brought only a grunt. Adam lifted the man to his feet and, supporting him, began to lead him over the sand. His equilibrium had been upset, and, like all men overcome on the desert, he wanted to plunge off a straight line. Adam persevered, but the labor of holding him was greater than that of supporting him. At length Adam released the straining fellow, as much out of curiosity to see what he would do as from a realization that time could not be wasted in this manner. He did not fall, but swayed and staggered around in a circle, like an animal that had been struck on the head. The texture of his ragged garments, the cut of them, the look of the man, despite his soiled and unkempt appearance, marked him as one not commonly met with in the desert. The coppery sun stood straight overhead and poured down a strong and leaden heat. Adam calculated that they were miles from camp and would never reach it at this rate. He pondered. He must carry the man. Suiting action to thought, he picked him up and, throwing him over his shoulder, started to plod on. The weight was little to one of Adam’s strength, but the squirming and wrestling of the fellow to get down made Adam flounder in the sand. [Illustration: BUT AT LENGTH THE BURDEN OF A HEAVY WEIGHT, AND THE DRAGGING SAND, AND THE HOT SUN, BROUGHT ADAM TO A PASS WHERE REST WAS IMPERATIVE] “You poor devil!” muttered Adam, at last brought to a standstill. “Maybe I can’t save your life, anyway.”