Far below them suddenly appeared a giant halo of light. It hung above the desert, wheeling and gyrating about five feet above the glaring white of the alkali.
"A halo," remarked Professor Wandering William gazing over the edge of the chassis.
"A halo? Whose—Roy's?" inquired Peggy.
"No, it is one of those halos peculiar to the desert," was the professor's rejoinder; "it is caused by heat refraction or something of the sort. I recall I did read a lengthy explanation of it somewhere once, but I've forgotten it now."
"Does it portend anything?" asked Roy, turning round for a moment from his levers.
"No. not that I know of, at least—except that it's hot."
"Good gracious, we don't need a halo to tell us that," cried Peggy, and then regarding Professor Wandering William with that frank, straight "between the eyes" look, as Jimsy called it, Peggy remarked, "Do you know, Professor Wandering William, that you are a very odd person?"
"Odd, my dear young lady. How so?"
"Why at times you are quite different to—to what you are at others," stumbled Peggy lamely. It wasn't just what she wanted to say, but as she told herself it expressed it tolerably.
"Almost human sometimes, eh?" chuckled Professor Wandering William with a very odd winkle of his gray eyes; "well, you are not the first person who has said that."