"The sun got me, eh?" murmured Murray. "Clairedelune, you're a wonder! I don't see how you did it. Lord but I feel ill again——"
He dropped back limply, and she burst into tears of despair and helplessness as she knelt above him.
Again she lashed herself to work, removed the blanket from above the seepage, and laid it aside for a night-covering. A Californian, she knew little about sunstroke; but she believed that now he had fallen into a coma, which might pass into sleep, and his regular breathing gave her some assurance.
The afternoon dragged into evening, and the night came. Still Murray lay senseless, breathing heavily but evenly. The sun slipped out of sight under the western rim, and darkness clamped down until the stars shone.
Claire spread her blankets above the tiny shelter she had made for Murray, and lay with her face to the south and Two Palms. What time it was when she wakened, she did not know; she lay for a moment wondering why she had roused, then glanced toward Murray's shelter. In the starlight she could see that he had not moved. She could hear his breathing, as it had been. Then—her gaze leaped to the desert floor, where two moving stars were drawing close.
An automobile! Hope sprang within her, drew a quick, glad cry from her lips. She leaped up and arranged her dress with shaking fingers. Tom Lee was coming, then, was almost here!
Hurriedly she made shift to light a tiny blaze from the fragments of her fire, to guide the arrivals. As the car came into the valley below, the sound apprised her that it was a flivver, and she became certain that Tom Lee had come. The car threaded its way up the hillside, and ten feet from Murray's car, came to a halt. Its engine was not shut off, and its headlights held Claire in the center of this scene, lighting the place dimly, but efficiently.
Two dark figures leaped from the car and came toward her. A cry broke from Claire, and she drew back—not Tom Lee after all! Here was Piute Tomkins, and with him a stranger whom she did not know. But her fear vanished swiftly, and she choked down her disappointment.
"I'm so glad you came!" she exclaimed. "Doctor Murray has been hurt—why, what's the matter?"
She halted, blankly astounded. The stranger and Piute both produced revolvers, and their manner was distinctly unfriendly. The stranger now flashed the badge of a sheriff; he was a keen-eyed man, bronzed and resolute.