“I never could, either. What is time on the desert? Nothin’.... Well, it flies, that’s sure. An’ it must be years since I met you first down there in the Colorado. Let’s see. Three times I went to Yuma--once to Riverside--an’ twice to San Diego. Six trips inside. That’s all I’ve made to bank my money since I met you. Six years. But, say, I missed a year or so.” “Dismukes, I’ve seen the snows white on the peaks eight times. Eight years, my friend, since Jinny cocked her ears that day and saved me. How little a thing life is in the desert!” “Eight years!” echoed Dismukes, and wagged his huge shaggy head. “It can’t be.... Well, well, time slips away.... Wansfell, you’re a young man, though I see gray over your temples. And you can’t have any more fear because of that--that crime you confessed to me. Lord! man, no one would ever know you as that boy!” “No fear that way any more. But fear of myself, Dismukes. If I went back to the haunts of men I would forget.” “Ah yes, yes!” sighed Dismukes. “I understand. I wonder how it’ll be with me when my hour comes to leave the desert. I wonder.” “Will that be long?” “You can never tell. I might strike it rich to-morrow. Always I dream I’m goin’ to. It’s the dream that keeps a prospector nailed to the lonely wastes.” Indeed, this strange man was a dreamer of dreams. Adam understood him now, all except that obsession for just so much gold. It seemed the only flaw in a great character. But the fidelity to that purpose was great as it was inexplicable. “Dismukes, you had a third of your stake when we met years ago. How much now?” “More than half, Wansfell, safe in banks an’ some hid away,” came the answer, rolling and strong. What understanding of endless effort abided in that voice! “A quarter of a million! My friend, it is enough. Take it and go--fulfill your cherished dream. Go before it’s too late.” “I’ve thought of that. Many times when I was sick an’ worn out with the damned heat an’ loneliness I’ve tempted myself with what you said. But, no. I’ll never do that. It’s the same to me now as if I had no money at all.” “Take care, Dismukes,” warned Adam. “It’s the gaining of gold--not what it might bring--that drives you.” “Ah! _Quien sabe_, as the Mexicans say?... Wansfell, have you learned the curse--or it may be the blessing--of the desert--what makes us wanderers of the wastelands?” “No. I have not. Sometimes I feel it’s close to me, like the feeling of a spirit out there on the lonely desert at night. But it’s a great thing, Dismukes. And it is linked to the very beginnings of us. Some day I’ll know.”