Adam could not for the moment safely trust himself to speak. The expanse of desert shown him, thus magnified into its true perspective, now stretched out with the nature of its distance and nudity strikingly clear. It did seem to glare a menace into Adam’s face. It made him tremble. Yet there was fascination in the luring, deceitful Superstition range, and a sublimity in the measureless sweep of haze and purple slope leading north to the great peaks, and a compelling beckoning urge in the mystery and unknown that seemed to abide beyond the bronze ridge which marked Adam’s objective point.
“I’ll never forget your—your kindness,” said Adam, finally turning to Dismukes.
The prospector shook hands with him, and his grip was something to endure.
“Kindness is nothin’. I owed you what a man owes to himself. But don’t forget anythin’ I told you.”
“I never will,” replied Adam. “Will you let me pay you for the—the burro and outfit?” Adam made this request hesitatingly, because he did not know the law of the desert, and he did not want to offer what might be an offense.
“Sure you got plenty of money?” queried Dismukes, gruffly.
“Indeed I have,” rejoined Adam, eagerly.
“Then I’ll take what the burro an’ grub cost.”
He named a sum that appeared very small to Adam, and, receiving the money in his horny hands, he carefully deposited it in a greasy buckskin sack.
“Wansfell, may we meet again,” he said in farewell. “Good luck an’ good by.... Don’t forget.”