“Useless! We have traveled three thousand miles to get to Death Valley. Years ago Elliot Virey read about this awful place. He was always interested. He learned that it was the most arid, ghastly, desolate, and terrible place of death in all the world.... Then, when he got me to Sacramento--and to Placerville--he would talk with miners, prospectors, Indians--anyone who could tell him about Death Valley.... Virey had a reason for finding a hell on earth. We crossed the mountains, range after range--and here we are.... Sir, the hell of which we read--even in its bottommost pit--cannot be worse than Death Valley.” “You will let me take you home--at least out of the desert?” queried Adam, with passionate sharpness. “Sir, I thank you again,” she replied, her voice thrilling richly. “But no--no! You do not understand--you cannot--and it’s impossible to explain.” “Ah! Yes, some things are.... Suppose you let me move your camp higher up, out of this thick, dead air and heat--where there are trees and good water?” “But it is not a beautiful and a comfortable camp that Virey--that we want,” she said, bitterly. “Then let me move your shack across the wash out of danger. This spot is the most forbidding I ever saw. That mountain above us is on the move. The whole cracked slope is sliding like a glacier. It is an avalanche waiting for a jar--a slip--something to start it. The rocks are rolling down all the time.” “Have I not heard the rocks--cracking, ringing--in the dead of night!” she cried, shuddering. Her slender form seemed to draw within itself and the white, slim hands clenched her gown. “Rocks! How I’ve learned to hate them! These rolling rocks are living things. I’ve heard them slide and crack, roll and ring--hit the sand with a thump, and then with whistle and thud go by where I lay in the dark.... People who live as I have lived know nothing of the elements. I had no fear of the desert--nor of Death Valley. I dared it. I laughed to scorn the idea that any barren wild valley, any maelstrom of the sea, any Sodom of a city could be worse than the chaos of my soul.... But I didn’t know. I am human. I’m a woman. A woman is meant to bear children. Nothing else!... I learned that I was afraid of the dark--that such fear had been born in me. These rolling rocks got on my nerves. I wait--I listen for them. And I pray.... Then the silence--that became so dreadful. It is insupportable. Worse than all is the loneliness.... Oh, this God-forsaken, lonely Death Valley! It will drive me mad.” As Adam had anticipated, no matter what strength of will, what sense of secrecy bound this woman’s lips, she had been victim to the sound of her own voice, which, liberated by his sympathy, had spoken, and a word, as it were, had led to a full, deep, passionate utterance. “True. All too terribly true,” replied Adam. “And for a woman--for you--these feelings will grow more intense.... I beg of you, at least let me move your camp back out of danger.”