One morning when Adam arose to greet the sunrise he looked through the gap between the trees, and low down along the desert floor he saw a burst of yellow. At first he imagined it to be a freak of sunlight or reflection, but he soon decided that it was a _palo verde_ in blossom. Beautiful, vivid, yellow gold, a fresh hue of the desert spring. May had come. Adam had forgotten the flight of time. What bittersweet stinging memory had that flushing _palo verde_ brought back to him! He had returned to the desert land he loved best, and which haunted him. Genie responded slowly to the Spartan training. She had been frail, at best, and when grief clamped her soul and body she had sunk to the verge. The effort she was driven to, and the exertion needful, wore her down until she appeared merely skin and bones. Then came the dividing line between waste and repair. She began to mend. Little by little her appetite improved until at last hunger seized upon her. From that time she grew like a weed. Thus the forced use of bone and muscle drove her blood as Adam had driven her, and the result was a natural functioning of physical life. Hard upon that change, and equally as natural, came the quickening of her mind. Healthy pulsing blood did not harbor morbid grief. Action was constructive; grief was destructive. Adam, giving himself wholly to this task of rehabilitation, added to his relentless developing of Genie’s body a thoughtful and interesting appeal to her mind. At once he made two discoveries--first, that Genie would give herself absorbingly to any story whatsoever, and secondly, that his mind seemed to be a full treasure house from which to draw. He who had spoken with so few men and women on the desert now was inspired by a child. He told Genie the beautiful Indian legend of Taquitch as it had been told to him by Oella, the Coahuila maiden who had taught him her language. When he finished Genie cried out: “Oh, I know. Taquitch is up on the mountain yet! In summer he hurls the lightning and thunder. In winter he lets loose the storm winds. And always, by day and night, he rolls the rocks.” “Yes, Genie, he’s there,” replied Adam. “Why did he steal the Indian maidens?” she asked, wonderingly. Genie evolved a question now and then that Adam found difficult to answer. She had the simplicity of an Indian, and the inevitableness, and a like ignorance of the so-called civilization of the white people. “Well, I suppose Taquitch fell in love with the Indian maidens,” replied Adam, slowly. “Fell in love. What’s that?” “Didn’t your mother ever tell you why she married your father?” “No.” “Why do you think she married him?” “I suppose they wanted to be together--to work--and go places, like they came West when they were sick. To help each other.” “Exactly. Well, Genie, they wanted to be together because they loved each other. They married because they fell in love with each other. Didn’t you ever have Indians camp here, and learn from them?”