The darkening line where the far-away hills in the south were dragged deeper and deeper into the night drew his wandering thoughts away from himself and sent them skimming after the girl he had seen that day.  Somewhere out there she was moving across the desert, plunged into the innermost circle of the grim solitude.  He remembered her eyes and the look he had seen in them.  He could see her again as she jerked in her plunging horse, as she caught the step of the swiftly moving train.  The desert had called her; and she, purposeful, strong, as clean of soul, he felt, as she was of body, had answered the call.  With the compelling desire to know her springing full-grown from his first swift interest in her, his fancies, touched by the subtle magic of the desert, showed her to him out yonder with the dusk and the silence about her.  He got to his feet and stood staring into the gathering gloom as though he would make out across the flat miles the flying buckboard.

“After all,” he told himself, with a restless, half-reckless little laugh, “why not?”

He turned and went back toward the town.  On his way he overtook a boy, a little fellow of eight or nine, driving a milk-cow ahead of him.  He found him the shy, wordless child he had expected, but chatted with him none the less, and by the time they had reached the first of the scattered buildings the boy had thawed a little and responded to Conniston’s talk.  After the brief, somewhat uncomfortable lonesomeness of a moment ago Conniston found himself glad of any company.  And upon leaving the boy at a tumbled-down house a bit farther on he found a half-dollar in his pocket and proffered it.

“Here, Johnny,” he said, smiling.  “This is for some candy.”

The boy put his hands behind his back.  “My name’s William,” he said, with a quiet, odd dignity.  “An’ I don’t take money off’n no one ’less I work for it!”

“My name’s William, too, my boy,” Conniston answered, much amused; “but you and I have very different ideas about taking money!”

“Proud little cuss,” he told himself, as he strode on along the street.  “Wonder who taught him that?”

Here and there in the dull dome above him the stars were beginning to come out.  On either hand the pale-yellow rays from kerosene-lamps straggled through windows and doors, making restless shadows underfoot.  From the door of the saloon the brightest light crept out into the night.  And with it came men’s voices.  Having a desire for companionship, and not craving that of Hapgood in his present mood, Conniston stepped in at the low door, and, going to the bar, called for a glass of beer.  There were half a dozen men, among whom he recognized the proprietor of the “hotel” and the men with whom he had been playing cards, and also the cowboys who had eaten at the other table.  In the center of the room, under a big nickeled swinging-lamp, a man was dealing faro while the others standing or sitting about him made their bets.  A glance told Conniston that the hotel man was playing heavily, his chips and gold stacked high in front of him.