"I can't make him out," she said. "It can't be Mr. Lang, for this man is coming from a direction different from the one he took, if the footprints of his pony leading out of this camp are any indication."
"Man b'longey horse hab go chop-chop!" volunteered Ping.
Looking quickly toward the west the Overlanders were amazed to find that the silent horseman who had had them under observation for hours was no longer in view. Though not more than two or three minutes had elapsed since Grace Harlowe last saw him, he had disappeared as suddenly as if the sands of the desert had opened and taken him in.
"Maybe he has fallen into a tank, just as I did," suggested Hippy.
"Mr. Lang is coming. It is he, after all," cried Grace joyously, as she gazed at the swiftly moving cloud of dust that Ping had called her attention to some moments before.
CHAPTER XV
THE GUIDE READS A DESERT TRAIL
"Did you shoot?" called the guide, pulling his pony down sharply.
Both pony and rider were gray from the desert dust, and the guide's face was lined with perspiration streaks. It was plain that he had ridden hard and long.
"Yes. Did you find water?" cried Emma.