It was the dispatch box, lightly sifted over with sand as was the body.
"What do you suppose happened?" asked Roger.
"She obviously thirsted to death. But she got the box first. Do you suppose she killed him, to get it?"
"Perhaps she found him dead and took it," suggested Roger.
"Well, we'll never know. Let's gather up what we can of her clothes and bury her. Poor old devil. Her story's ended," said Dick.
They dug Clarissa von Minden's grave and put her in it, then Dick pulled a prayer book from his pocket.
"Charley made me bring it," he explained. "I'm glad of it, now. Somehow it seems worse to chuck a woman away without a minister to help, than it does a man. I guess she did some tall suffering, from first to last, eh Rog?"
Roger nodded. Dick read the burial service reverently and they finished this gruesome job. Roger tied the little black metal box to his saddle and they started on their way. They made camp in the mountains that evening, not far from the peak that sheltered Von Minden. They had ample firewood for they camped near a clump of cedars and they went hastily through the contents of the dispatch box, by the light of the flames.
There was no marriage certificate. The entire box was filled with notes in German in a microscopic hand. Roger read excerpts of it. Von Minden seemed to have made an exhaustive study of the resources of this section of the desert and of the north of Mexico.
"He had some sort of a huge irrigation scheme in his head," Roger said. "He's got some letters copied in here and a lot of stuff. We ought to turn this over to a German consul, somewhere and let him notify the proper relations."