"Then you think you will make a guess on the proposition," asked Abe slyly.
The Seer laughed like a boy. "I start for New York to-morrow night," he answered.
In the afternoon of the next day they struck the San Felipe trail a few miles from Rubio City. Perhaps it was the sight of that old road, with its memories for the Seer and his companion, that led the engineer to say: "It's curious, Abe, but I can't shake off the odd feeling that Barbara's life is somehow wrapped up in that country out there." As he spoke he turned in his saddle to look back toward the Basin. "She seems to belong to it somehow as, in a way, it belongs to her. There is a look in her eyes sometimes that makes me think of the desert and the desert always reminds me of her. I know one thing," he finished with a short laugh, "if I was to let out some of the fancies that have come to me in this connection it would ruin me forever so far as my profession goes."
Abe made no reply, possibly because he also had fancies—fancies that he could not tell even to the Seer.
It is astonishing what a great cloud of dust five animals can stir up on a desert trail. As the little outfit jogged slowly along, the great yellow mass rolled up into the air high above their heads and hung—a long, slow-drifting streamer—above the trail until it vanished in the distance.
Barbara, who was riding out from town on the Mesa, saw that cloud and stopped to study it intently for a few moments as if debating some question. Then touching her animal with the spur, she set off rapidly in the direction of the approaching horsemen; while the two men watched the dust that arose from the single horse's feet with the interest that travelers in lonely lands always feel in any life that chances to come their way.
"Abe, that's a woman," exclaimed the Seer after a time.
Abe said nothing. He had discovered that interesting fact some moments before.
The engineer rose in his stirrups. "Abe, I'll bet a month's salary it's
Barbara."
"I'm not gambling," returned the other, smiling at his companion's excitement. "I know it is."