“Yes. I always oppose women,” he said. “And that is about once every two or three years. You see, women are scarce on the desert.” “Last night I was upset. I am sorry that I was ungracious. I thank you, and I am only too glad to accept your kind service,” she said, earnestly. “That is well. Now, will you help me carry in the breakfast?” Unreality was not unusual to Adam. The desert had as many unrealities, illusions, and specters as it had natural and tangible things. But while he sat opposite to this fascinating woman, whose garments exuded some subtle fragrance of perfume, whose shadowed, beautiful face shone like a cameo against the drab wall of the brush shack, he was hard put to it to convince himself of actuality. She ate daintily, but she was hungry. The gray gown fell in graceful folds around the low stone seat. The rude table between them was a box, narrow and uneven. “Shall I try to get Virey to eat?” she asked, presently. “That depends. On the desert, after a collapse, we are careful with food and water.” “Will you look at him?” Adam followed her as she swept aside a flap of the canvas partition. This room was larger and lighter. It had an aperture for a window. Adam’s quick glance took this in, and then the two narrow beds of blankets raised on brush cots. Virey lay on the one farther from the door. His pallid brow and unshaven face appeared drawn into terrible lines, which, of course, Adam could not be sure were permanent or the result of the collapse in the valley. He inclined, however, to the conviction that Virey’s face was the distorted reflection of a tortured soul. Surely he had been handsome once. He had deep-set black eyes, a straight nose, and a mouth that betrayed him, despite its being half hidden under a mustache. Adam, keen and strung in that moment as he received his impressions of Virey, felt the woman’s intensity as if he had been studying her instead of her husband. How singular women were! How could it matter to her what opinion he formed of her husband? Adam knew he had been powerfully prejudiced against this man, but he had held in stern abeyance all judgment until he could look at him. For long years Adam had gazed into the face of the desert. Outward appearance could not deceive him. As the cactus revealed its ruthless nature, as the tiny inch-high flower bloomed in its perishable but imperative proof of beauty as well as life, as the long flowing sands of the desert betrayed the destructive design of the universe--so the face of any man was the image of his soul. And Adam recoiled instinctively, if not outwardly, at what he read in Virey’s face. “You’re in pain?” queried Adam. “Yes,” came the husky whisper, and Virey put a hand on his breast. “It’s sore here,” said Adam, feeling Virey. “You’ve breathed poisoned air down in the valley. It acts like ether.... You just lie quiet for a while. I’ll do the work around camp.” “Thank you,” whispered Virey.