When had the camp fire of his greeted such a vision, except in his vague dreams? Tall, white-gowned, slender, and graceful, with the poise of a woman aloof and proud and the sad face of a Madonna--what a woman to sit at Adam’s camp fire in Death Valley! The shadowed and thick light hid the ravages that had by day impaired her beauty. Adam placed a canvas pack for her to sit upon, and then he served her, with something that was not wholly unconscious satisfaction. Of all men, he of the desert could tell the signs of hunger; and the impression had come to him that she was half starved. The way she ate brought home to Adam with a pang the memorable days when he was starving. This woman sitting in the warm, enhancing glow of the camp fire had an exquisitely spiritual face. She had seemed all spirit. But self-preservation was the first instinct and the first law of human nature, or any nature. “When have I eaten so heartily!” she exclaimed at last. “But, oh! it all tasted so good.... Sir, you are a capital cook.” “Thank you,” replied Adam, much gratified. “Do you always fare so well?” “No. I’m bound to confess I somewhat outdid myself to-night. You see, I seldom have such opportunity to serve a woman.” She rested her elbows on her knees, with her hands under her chin, and looked at him with intense interest. In the night her eyes seemed very full and large, supernaturally bright and tragic. They were the eyes of a woman who still preserved in her something of inherent faith in mankind. Adam divined that she had scarcely looked at him before as an individual with a personality, and that some accent or word of his had struck her singularly. “It was that miner, Dis--Dis----” “Dismukes,” added Adam. “Yes. It was he who sent you here. Are you a miner, too?” “No. I care little for gold.” “Ah!... What are you, then?” “Just a wanderer. Wansfell, the Wanderer, they call me.” “They? Who are they?” “Why, I suppose they are the other wanderers. Men who tramp over the desert--men who seek gold or forgetfulness or peace or solitude--men who are driven--or who hide. These are few, but, taken by the years, they seem many.” “Men of the desert have passed by here, but none like you,” she replied, with gravity, and her eyes pierced him. “_Why_ did you come?” “Years ago my life was ruined,” said Adam, slowly. “I chose to fight the desert. And in all the years the thing that helped me most was not to pass by anyone in trouble. The desert sees strange visitors. Life is naked here, like those stark mountain-sides.... Dismukes is my friend--he saved me from death once. He is a man who knows this wasteland. He told me about your being here. He said no white woman could live in Death Valley.... I wondered--if I might--at least advise you, turn you back--and so I came.” His earnestness deeply affected her. “Sir, your kind words warm a cold and forlorn heart,” she said. “But I cannot be turned back. It’s too late.”