“Dismukes? The little miner, huge, like a frog?” she queried, quickly, with dilating eyes. “I remember. He was kind, but— And you’re his friend?”
“Yes, at your service, ma’am.”
“Thank—God!” she cried, brokenly, and she leaned back against the door. “I’m in trouble. I’ve been alone—all—all night. My husband left yesterday. He took only a canteen. He said he’d be back for supper.... But—he didn’t come. Oh, something has happened to him.”
“Many things happen in the desert,” said Adam. “I’ll find your husband. I saw his tracks out here in the sand.”
“Oh, can you find him?”
“Ma’am, I can track a rabbit to its burrow. Don’t worry any more. I will track your husband and find him.”
The woman suddenly seemed to be struck with Adam’s tone, or the appearance of him. It was as if she had not particularly noticed him at first. “Once he got lost—was gone two days. Another time he was overcome by heat—or something in the air.”
“You’ve been alone before?” queried Adam, quick to read the pain of the past in her voice.
“Alone?... Many—many lonely nights,” she said. “He’s left me—alone—often—purposely—for me to torture my soul here in the blackness.... And those rolling rocks—cracking in the dead of night—and——” Then the flash of her died out, as if she had realized she was revealing a shameful secret to a stranger.
“Ma’am, is your husband just right in his mind?” asked Adam.