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the earth. Under some huge boulders which crested the rim was a cave into which Kerson had gone. Inside were set out some stores and it looked as comfortable as a log cabin—more so, for it was cool and spacious. Our guide set about getting supper ready.
    â€œCome with me, Mr. Silchester,” said Mr. Mycroft. “We’ll cover up the car and bring in the luggage.” I followed him out. While we carried out these details he said, “Kerson is one of my trade, gone eremite. The tracker, of course, is the prehistoric detective. This man has a small trading-post some fifty miles from here for serving the Indians—we’re not far from a big reservation. As soon as I had made my preliminary studies for this case—with which I need not bother you now—I knew that I would have to keep an eye on the desert. You could tell me, I soon learned, of Mr. Intil himself; but someone else I should need to tell me of his goal.”
    â€œIt’s a pretty large target.”
    â€œBut marvelously clear and empty.”
    â€œStill, here a man could be lost for good and no one know.”
    â€œYes, he might be lost; but I’d take a large wager that though all this seems so vast and empty, some eye, though it might not see the moment of his perishing, would have noted him going to his doom. The Indians are natural watchers, onlookers. They won’t interfere, if they can help it. They won’t even tell what they have seen, unless there seems good reason. But one of them will have seen. Of his nature, he cannot help noticing. He doesn’t like strangers, still less trespassers. So he’ll generally leave them alone even when they have got themselves in extremis .”
    â€œBut has Kerson any news of our man?” I asked a little impatiently.
    â€œI’d have hardly brought us out here, if he hadn’t.”
    We had finished shifting our baggage and as we passed behind the boulders and picked our way into the cave, Mr. Mycroft spoke to Kerson, who was sitting on the smooth earth floor cooking with a pressure stove.
    â€œWould you please repeat to us two your record of the stranger’s moves three days ago?”
    Without turning from his work and in a flat drawl the trader recited, as though he were reading off a ship’s log, “Blue Feather saw man with two burros—he may have gotten ’em off that old prospector Sanderson. He used to be all over this once. Not been seen for quite a while now—perhaps he’s lying up somewhere. Being Scotch, off and on he takes a rest just on ‘Scotch.’ Blue Feather watched burros and man ’way along this trail. They went on from here quite a bit. ’Course that outfit (if he can keep not too far from water and knows his trails) can go from here to Canada. We’ll be able to follow the start anyhow. Blue Feather says they’re clear a good way on from this.”
    Mr. Mycroft made no comment, but started getting coffee ready on another stove. As I was, I supposed, meant to fit in, I unrolled our bedding and spread it on the broad sill or platform which ran on either side of the cave. When I turned, Kerson was forking out fried bacon and eggs onto battered tin plates and Mr. Mycroft had collected an equally weather-beaten fleet of mugs. The fact that the dinner service looked like the salvage from a refuse heap did not “put me off my victuals.” The smell was excellent and I was hungry in that rare air. What made me feel, if not distaste, at least a slight hesitation over this highly fragrant meal was its main setting. Through the cave’s mouth one saw—as it seemed, almost close enough to be touched—a mountain of solid amethyst. It looked as though it were made of one immense crystal, too smooth and steep ever to be climbed. The sun had sunk on the other side of it, but one felt that one ought to be able to see the level rays, dyed purple, pouring through the wall of rock, so