"Too hot, girlie. My breath's all gone. Go to sleep." "Please, papa; pretty please!" The man succumbed, as he knew from the first he would do, braced himself in the aperture, and sang the one verse that he knew of the song again and again--his voice rough and unmusical as that of a crow, echoing and re-echoing in the narrow space--bent over at last, touched his bearded lips softly to the winsome, motionless brown face, climbed, an irresistible catch in his breath, silently to the surface, sent one swift glance sweeping the bare earth around him, and returned to the cabin. Very carefully that sultry afternoon he cleaned his old hammer shotgun, and, loading both barrels with buckshot, set it handy beside the door. "Antelope," he explained laconically; but when likewise he overhauled the revolver hanging at his hip, Margaret was not deceived. This done, notwithstanding the fact that the sun still beat scorchingly hot thereon, he returned to the doorstep, lit his pipe, drew his weather-stained sombrero low over his face, through half-closed eyes inspected the lower lands all about, impassively silent awaited the coming of the inevitable. Of a sudden there was a touch on his shoulder, and, involuntarily starting, he looked up, into the face of Margaret Rowland. The woman sat down beside him, her hand on his knee. "Don't keep it from me," she requested steadily. "You've seen something." In the brier bowl before his face the tobacco glowed more brightly as Rowland drew hard. "Tell me, please," repeated Margaret. "Are they here?" The pipe left the man's mouth. The great bushy head nodded reluctant corroboration. "Yes," he said. "You--saw them?" Again the man's head spoke an affirmative. "It's perhaps as well, after all, for you to know." One hand indicated the foot of the rise before them. "They waylaid Mueller there." "And you--" "It was all over in a second." Puff, puff. "After all he--Margaret!" "Don't mind me. I was thinking of baby. The hideous suggestion!" "Margaret!" He held her tight, so tight he could feel the quiver of her body against his, the involuntary catch of her breath. "Forgive me, Margaret." "You're not to blame. Perhaps--Oh, Sam, Sam, our baby!" Hotter and hotter beat down the sun. Thicker and thicker above the scorching earth vibrated the curling heat waves. The very breath of prairie seemed dormant, stifled. Not the leaf of a sunflower stirred, or a blade of grass. In the tiny patch of Indian corn each individual plant drooped, almost like a sensate thing, beneath the rays, each broad leaf contracted, like a roll of parchment, tight upon the parent stalk. In sympathy the colour scheme of the whole lightened from the appearance of the paler green under-surface. Though silently, yet as plainly as had done Hans Mueller when fighting for life, they lifted the single plea: "Water! Water! Give us drink!"