He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little elevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the great salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of savage mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which might indicate the presence of moisture. In all that broad landscape there was no gleam of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with wild, questioning eyes, and then he realized that his wanderings had come to an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he he was about to die. “Why not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence?” he muttered, as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.

Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless rifle, and also a large bundle tied up in a gray shawl, which he had carried slung over his right shoulder. It appeared to be somewhat too heavy for his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the ground with some little violence. Instantly there broke from the gray parcel a little moaning cry, and and from it there protruded a small, scared face, with very bright brown eyes, and two little speckled dimpled fists.

“You’ve hurt me!” said a childish voice, reproachfully.

“Have I, though?” the man answered penitently; “I didn’t go for to do it.” As he spoke he unwrapped the gray shawl and extricated a pretty little girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart pink frock with its little linen apron, all bespoke a mother’s care. The child was pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that she had suffered less than her her companion.

“How is it now?” he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing the tousy golden curls which covered the back of her head.

“Kiss it and make it well,” she said, with perfect gravity, showing the injured part up to him. “That’s what mother used to do. Where’s mother?”

“Mother’s gone. I guess you‘ll see her before long.”

“Gone, eh!” said the little girl. “Funny, she didn’t say good-bye; she most always did if she was just goin’ over to auntie’s for tea, and now she‘s been away three days. Say, it’s awful dry, ain’t it? Ain‘t there there no water nor nothing to eat?”

“No, there ain’t nothing, dearie. You‘ll just need to be patient awhile, and then you’ll be all right. Put your head up ag‘in me like that, and then you’ll feel bullier. It ain‘t easy to talk when your lips is like leather, but I guess I’d best let you know how the cards lie. What’s that you‘ve got?”

“Pretty things! fine things!” cried the little girl enthusiastically, holding up two glittering fragments of mica. “When we goes back to home I’ll give them to brother Bob.”

“You’ll see prettier things than them soon,” soon said the man confidently. “You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you though — you remember when we left the river?”

‘But it is because you love me, that you want me?’ she persisted.

‘No it isn’t. It is because I believe in you—if I DO believe in you.’

‘Aren’t you sure?’ she laughed, suddenly hurt.

He was looking at her steadfastly, scarcely heeding what she said.

‘Yes, I must believe in you, or else I shouldn’t be here saying this,’ he replied. ‘But that is all the proof I have. I don’t feel any very strong belief belief at this particular moment.’

She disliked him for this sudden relapse into weariness and faithlessness.

‘But don’t you think me good–looking?’ she persisted, in a mocking voice.

He looked at her, to see if he felt that she was good–looking.

‘I don’t FEEL that you’re good–looking,’ he said.

‘Not even attractive?’ she mocked, bitingly.

He knitted his brows in sudden exasperation.

‘Don’t you see that it’s not a question of visual appreciation in the least,’ he cried. ‘I don’t WANT to see you. I’ve seen plenty of women, I’m sick and weary of seeing them. I want a woman I don’t see.’

‘I’m sorry I can’t oblige you by being invisible,’ she laughed.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you are invisible to me, if you don’t force me to be visually aware of you. But I don’t want to see you or hear you.’

‘What did you ask me to tea for, then?’ she mocked.

But he would take no notice of her. He was talking to himself.

‘I want to find you, where you don’t know your own existence, the you that your common self denies utterly. But I don’t want your good looks, and I don’t want your womanly feelings, and I don’t want your thoughts nor opinions nor your ideas—they are all bagatelles to me.’

‘You are very conceited, Monsieur,’ she mocked. ‘How do you know what my womanly feelings are, or my thoughts or my ideas? You don’t even know what I think of you now.’

‘Nor do I care in the slightest.’

‘I think you are very silly. I think you want to tell me you love me, and you go all this way round to do it.’

‘All right,’ he said, looking up with sudden exasperation. ‘Now go away then, and leave me alone. I don’t want any more of your meretricious persiflage.’

‘Is it really persiflage?’ she mocked, her face really relaxing into laughter. She interpreted it, that he had made a deep confession of love to her. But he was so absurd in his words, also.

They were silent for many minutes, she was pleased and elated like a child. His concentration broke, he began to look at her simply and naturally.

‘What I want is a strange conjunction with you—’ he said quietly; ‘not meeting and mingling—you are quite right—but an equilibrium, a pure balance of two single beings—as the stars balance each other.’