Slow, strong unrest, the endless moving of contending tides, heaved in Adam’s breast. “So you pray for me, Genie?... Well, it is good of you. I hope I’m worthy.... But, _why_ do you pray?” She pondered the question. Thought was developing in Genie. “Before mother died I prayed because she taught me. Since then--lately--it--it lifts me up--it takes away the sorrow here.” And she put a hand over her heart. “Genie, then you believe in God--the God who is supposed to answer your prayers?” “Yes. And he is not a god like Taquitch--or the beasts and rocks that the Indians worship. My God is all around me, in the sunshine, in the air, in the humming bees and whispering leaves and murmuring water. I feel him everywhere, and in me, too!” “Genie, tell me one prayer, just _one_ of yours or your mother’s that was truly answered,” appealed Adam, with earnest feeling. “We prayed for some one to come. I know mother prayed for some one to save me from being alone--from starving. And I prayed for some one to come and help her--to relieve her terrible dread about me.... And _you_ came!” Adam was silenced. What had he to contend with here? Faith and fact were beyond question, as Genie represented them. What little he knew! He could not even believe that a divine guidance had been the spirit of his wandering steps. But he was changing. Always the future--always the unknown calling--always the presentiment of sterner struggle, of larger growth, of ultimate fulfillment! His illusion, his fetish, his phantasmagoria rivaled the eternal and inexplicable faith of his friend Dismukes. * * * * * Andreas Canyon was far from the camp under the cottonwoods, but Adam and Genie, having once feasted their eyes upon its wildness and beauty and grandeur, went back again and again, so that presently the distance in the hot sun was no hindrance, and the wide area of white, glistening, terrible _cholla_ cactus was no obstacle. For that matter the cactus patch was endurable because of its singular beauty. Adam could not have told why _cholla_ fascinated him, and, though Genie admitted she liked to look at the frosty silver-lighted cones and always had an impulse to prick her fingers on the cruel thorns, she could not explain why.