A new day dawned, and over the stunted, bizarre shapes of that land of drought the sun resumed its merciless vigil. Bob Eden was early abroad; it was getting to be a habit with him. Before breakfast was served he had a full hour for reflection, and it could not be denied that he had much upon which to reflect. One by one he recalled the queer things that had happened since he came to the ranch. Foremost in his thoughts was the problem of Evelyn Madden. Where was that haughty lady now? No morning mists on the landscape here, but in his mind a constantly increasing fog. If only something definite would occur, something they could understand.

After breakfast he rose from the table and lighted a cigarette. He knew that Madden was eagerly waiting for him to speak.

“Mr. Madden,” he said, “I find that I must go to Barstow this morning on rather important business. It’s an imposition, I know. But if Ah Kim could drive me to town in time for the ten-fifteen train⁠—”

Thorn’s green eyes widened with sudden interest. Madden looked at the boy with ill-concealed approval.

“Why, that’s all right,” he replied. “I’ll be glad to arrange it for you. Ah Kim⁠—you drive Mr. Eden in town in half an hour. Savvy?”

“All time moah job,” complained Ah Kim. “Gettum up sunlise, woik, woik till sun him dlop. You want ’um taxi-dliver why you no say so?”

“What’s that?” cried Madden.

Ah Kim shrugged. “Allight, boss. I dlive ’um.”

When, later on, Eden sat in the car beside the Chinese and the ranch was well behind them Chan regarded him questioningly.

“Now you produce big mystery,” he said. “Barstow on business has somewhat unexpected sound to me.”

Eden laughed. “Orders from the big chief,” he replied. “I’m to go down there and meet Al Draycott⁠—and the pearls.”

For a moment Chan’s free hand rested on his waist and the “undigestible” burden that still lay there.

“Madden changes fickle mind again?” he inquired.

“That’s just what he’s done.” Eden related the purport of the millionaire’s call on him the night before.

“What you know concerning that!” exclaimed Chan wonderingly.

“Well, I know this much,” Eden answered. “It gives us one more day for the good old hoomalimali. Outside of that it’s just another problem for us to puzzle over. By the way, I didn’t tell you why Doctor Whitcomb came to see us last night.”

“No necessity,” Chan replied. “I am loafing idle inside door close by and hear it all.”

“Oh, you were? Then you know it may have been Shaky Phil, and not Thorn, who killed Louie?”

“Shaky Phil⁠—or maybe stranger in car who drive up and call him into the road. Must admit that stranger interests me very deep. Who was he? Was it maybe him who carried news of Louie’s approach out on to dreary desert?”

“Well, if you’re starting to ask me questions,” replied Eden, “then the big mystery is over and we may as well wash up and go home. For I haven’t got an answer in me.” Eldorado lay before them, its roofs gleaming under the morning sun. “By the way, let’s drop in and see Holley. The train isn’t due yet⁠—I suppose I’d better take it, somebody might be watching. In the interval Holley may have news.”

The editor was busy at his desk. “Hello, you’re up and around pretty early this morning,” he said. He pushed aside his typewriter. “Just dashing off poor old Louie’s obit. What’s new out at Mystery Ranch?”

Bob Eden told him of Doctor Whitcomb’s call, also of Madden’s latest switch regarding the pearls, and his own imminent wild-goose chase to Barstow.

Holley smiled, “Cheer up⁠—a little travel will broaden you,” he remarked. “What did you think of Miss Evelyn? But then I believe you had met her before.”

“Think of Miss Evelyn? What do you mean?” asked Eden, surprised.

“Why, she came last night, didn’t she?”

“Not so anybody could notice it. No sign of her at the ranch.”

Holley rose and walked up and down for a moment. “That’s odd. That’s very odd. She certainly arrived on the six-forty train.”

“You’re sure of that?” Eden asked.

“Of course I am. I saw her.” Holley sat down again. “I wasn’t very much occupied last night⁠—it was one of my free nights⁠—I have three hundred and sixty-five of them every year. So I strolled over to the station and met the six-forty. Thorn was there too. A tall, handsome girl got off the train, and I heard Thorn address her as Miss Evelyn. ‘How’s Dad?’ she asked. ‘Get in,’ said Thorn, ‘and I’ll tell you about him. He wasn’t able to come and meet you himself.’ The girl entered the car, and they drove away. Naturally. I thought she was brightening your life long before this.”

Eden shook his head. “Funny business,” he commented. “Thorn got back to the ranch a little after ten, and when he came he was alone. Charlie here discovered, with his usual acumen, that the car had travelled some thirty-nine miles.”

“Also clinging to accelerator, as though scraped off from shoe of Thorn, small fragment of red clay,” added Chan. “You are accustomed round here, Mr. Holley. Maybe you can mention home of red clay.”

“Not offhand,” replied Holley. “There are several places⁠—But say, this thing gets deeper and deeper. Oh⁠—I was forgetting⁠—there’s a letter here for you, Eden.”

He handed over a neat missive addressed in an old-fashioned hand. Eden inspected it with interest. It was from Madame Jordan, a rather touching appeal not to let the deal for the pearls fall through. He went back and began to read it aloud. Mrs. Jordan could not understand. Madden was there, he had bought the pearls⁠—why the delay? The loss of that money would be serious for her.

When he had finished Eden looked accusingly at Chan, then tore the letter to bits and threw them into a wastepaper-basket. “I’m about through,” he said. “That woman is one of the dearest old souls that ever lived, and it strikes me we’re treating her shamefully. After all, what’s happening out at Madden’s ranch is none of our business. Our duty to Madame Jordan⁠—”

“Pardon me,” broke in Chan, “but coming to that, I have sense of duty most acute myself. Loyalty blooms in my heart forever⁠—”

“Well, and what do you think we ought to do?” demanded Eden.

“Watch and wait.”

“But, good Lord⁠—we’ve done that. I was thinking about it this morning. One inexplicable event after another, and never anything definite, anything we can get our teeth into. Such a state of affairs may go on forever. I tell you, I’m fed-up.”

“Patience,” said Chan, “are a very lovely virtue. Through long centuries Chinese cultivate patience like kind gardener tending flowers. White men leap about similar to bug in bottle. Which are better method, I inquire?”

“But listen, Charlie. All this stuff we’ve discovered out at the ranch⁠—that’s for the police.”

“For stupid Captain Bliss, maybe. He with the feet of large extensiveness.”

“I can’t help the size of his feet. What’s that got to do with it? No, sir⁠—I can’t see why we don’t give Madden the pearls, get his receipt, and then send for the sheriff and tell him the whole story. After that, he can worry about who was killed at Madden’s ranch.”

“He would solve the problem,” scoffed Chan. “Great mind, no doubt, like Captain Bliss. Your thought has, from me, nothing but hot opposition.”

“Well, but I’m considering Madame Jordan. I’ve got her interests at heart.”

Chan patted him on the back. “Who can question that? You fine young fellow, loyal and kind. But listen now to older heads. Mr. Holley, you have inclination to intrude your car?”

“I certainly have,” smiled Holley. “I’m all on the side of Chan, Eden. It would be a pity to drop this thing now. The sheriff’s a good sort, but all this would be too deep for him. No, wait just a little while⁠—”

“All right,” sighed Eden. “I’ll wait. Provided you tell me one thing. What are we waiting for?”

“Madden goes to Pasadena tomorrow,” Chan suggested. “No doubt Thorn will accompany, and we quench this Gamble somehow. Great time for us. All our search at ranch up to now hasty and breathless, like man pursuing trolley-car. Tomorrow we dig deep.”

“You can do it,” replied Eden. “I’m not eager to dig for the sort of prize you want.” He paused. “At that, I must admit I’m pretty curious myself. Charlie, you’re an old friend of the Jordans, and you can take the responsibility for this delay.”

“Right here on shoulders,” Chan agreed, “responsibility reclines. Same way necklace reposes on stomach. Seem to coddle there now, those Phillimore pearls, happy and content. Humbly suggest you take this aimless journey to Barstow.”

Eden looked at his watch. “I suppose I might as well. Bit of city life never did anybody any harm. But I warn you that when I come back I want a little light. If any more dark, mysterious things happen at that ranch I certainly will run right out into the middle of the desert and scream.”

Taking the train proved an excellent plan, for on the station platform he met Paula Wendell, who evidently had the same idea. She was trim and charming in riding habit, and her eyes sparkled with life.

“Hello,” she said. “Where are you bound?”

“Going to Barstow, on business,” Eden explained.

“Is it important?”

“Naturally. Wouldn’t squander my vast talents on any other kind.”

A train wandered in, and they found a seat together in one of its two cars.

“Sorry to hear you’re needed in Barstow,” remarked the girl. “I’m getting off a few stations down. Going to rent a horse and take a long ride up into Lonely Canyon. It wouldn’t have been so lonely if you could have come along.”

Eden smiled happily. Certainly one had few opportunities to look into eyes like hers. “What station do we get off at?” he inquired.

“We? I thought you said⁠—”

“The truth isn’t in me these days. Barstow doesn’t need my presence any more than you need a beauty doctor. Lonely Canyon, after today, will have to change its name.”

“Good,” she answered. “We get off at Seven Palms. The old rancher who rents me a horse will find one for you, I’m sure.”

“I’m not precisely dressed for the role,” admitted Eden. “But I trust it will be all the same to the horse.”

The horse didn’t appear to mind. His rather dejected manner suggested that he had expected something like this. They left the tiny settlement known as Seven Palms and cantered off across the desert.

“For to admire an’ for to see, for to be’old this world so wide,” said Eden. “Never realized how very wide it was until I came down here.”

“Beginning to like the desert?” the girl inquired.

“Well, there’s something about it,” he admitted. “It grows on you, that’s a fact. I don’t know that I could put the feeling into words.”

“I’m sure I can’t,” she answered. “Oh, I envy you, coming here for the first time. If only I could look at this country again with a fresh, disinterested eye. But it’s just location to me. I see all about me the cowboys, the cavalcades, the caballeros of Hollywood. Tragedies and feats of daring, rescues and escapes. I tell you, these dunes and canyons have seen more movies than Will Hays.”

“Hunting locations today?” Eden asked.

“Always hunting,” she sighed. “They’ve just sent me a new script⁠—as new as those mountains over there. All about the rough cowpuncher and the millionaire’s dainty daughter from the East⁠—you know.”

“I certainly do. Girl’s fed up on those Society orgies, isn’t she?”

“Who wouldn’t be? However, the orgies are given in full, with the swimming-pool working overtime, as always. But that part doesn’t concern me. It’s after she comes out here, sort of hungering to meet a real man, that I must start worrying. Need I add, she meets him? Her horse runs away over the desert, and tosses her off amid the sagebrush. In the nick of time the cowpuncher finds her. Despite their different stations, love blossoms here in the wastelands. Sometimes I’m almost glad that mine is beginning to be an obsolete profession.”

“Is it? How come?”

“Oh, the movies move. A few years back the location-finder was a rather important person. Today most of this country has been explored and charted, and every studio is equipped with big albums full of pictures. So every time a new efficiency expert comes along⁠—which is about once a week⁠—and starts lopping off heads, it’s the people in my line who are the first to go. In a little while we’ll be as extinct as the dodo.”

“You may be extinct,” Eden answered. “But there the similarity between you and the dodo will stop abruptly.”

The girl halted her horse. “Just a minute. I want to take a few pictures here. It looks to me like a bit of desert we haven’t used yet. Just the sort of thing to thrill the shop-girls and the bookkeepers back there where the East hangs out.” When she had swung again into the saddle she added: “It isn’t strange they love it, those tired people in the cities. Each one thinks, ‘Oh, if only I could go there.’ ”

“Yes, and if they got here once they’d die of loneliness the first night,” Bob Eden said. “Just pass out in agony moaning for the subway and the comics in the evening paper.”

“I know they would,” the girl replied. “But fortunately they’ll never come.”

They rode on, and the girl began to point out the various unfriendly-looking plants of the desert, naming them one by one. Arrow-weed, bitter-brush, mesquite, desert plantain, catclaw, thistle-sage.

“That’s a cholla,” she announced. “Another variety of cactus. There are seventeen thousand in all.”

“All right,” Eden replied. “I’ll take your word for it. You needn’t name them.” His head was beginning to ache with all this learning.

Presently sumac and Canterbury bell proclaimed their nearness to the canyon, and they cantered out of the desert heat into the cathedral-like coolness of the hills. In and out over almost hidden trails the horses went. Wild plum glowed on the slopes, and far below under native palms a narrow stream tinkled invitingly.

Life seemed very simple and pleasant there in Lonely Canyon, and Bob Eden felt suddenly close indeed to this lively girl with the eager eyes. All a lie that there were crowded cities. The world was new, unsullied and unspoiled, and they were alone in it.

They descended by way of a rather treacherous path, and in the shelter of the palms that fringed the tiny stream dismounted for a lunch which Paula Wendell claimed to have concealed in her knapsack.

“Wonderfully restful here,” Bob Eden said.

“But you said the other day you weren’t tired,” the girl reminded him.

“Well, I’m not. But somehow I like this, anyhow. However, I guess it isn’t all a matter of geography. It’s not so much the place you’re in⁠—it’s who you’re with. After which highly original remark, I hasten to add that I really can’t eat a thing.”

“You were right,” she laughed. “The truth isn’t in you. I know what you’re thinking⁠—I didn’t bring enough for two. But these Oasis sandwiches are meant for ranchers, and one is my limit. There are four of them⁠—I must have had a premonition. We’ll divide the milk equally.”

“But look here⁠—it’s your lunch. I should have thought to get something at Seven Palms.”

“There’s a roast-beef sandwich. Try that, and maybe you won’t feel so talkative.”

“Well, I⁠—um⁠—gumph⁠—”

“What did I tell you? Oh, the Oasis aims to fill. Milk?”

“Ashamed of myself,” mumbled Eden. But he was easily persuaded.

“You haven’t eaten a thing,” he said finally.

“Oh, yes, I have. More than I usually do. I’m one of those dainty eaters.”

“Good news for Wilbur,” replied Eden. “The upkeep won’t be high. Though if he has any sense he’ll know that, whatever the upkeep on a girl like you, it will be worth it.”

“I sent him your love,” said the girl.

“Is that so? Well, I’m sorry you did, in a way. I’m no hypocrite, and, try as I may, I can’t discover any lurking fondness for Wilbur. Oddly enough, the boy begins to annoy me.”

“But you said⁠—”

“I know. But isn’t it just possible that I’ve overrated this freedom stuff? I’m young, and the young are often mistaken. Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but the more I see of you⁠—”

“Stop. I’ve heard it.”

“I’ll bet you have. Many times.”

“And my suggestion is that we get back to business. If we don’t that horse of yours is going to eat too much Bermuda grass.”

Through the long afternoon, amid the hot yellow dunes, the windblown foothills of that sandy waste, they rode back to Seven Palms by a roundabout route. The sun was sinking, the rose-and-gold wonder of the skies reflected on snow and glistening sand, when finally they headed for the village.

“If only I could find a novel setting for the final love scene,” sighed the girl.

“Whose final love scene?”

“The cowpuncher’s and the poor little rich girl’s. So many times they’ve just wandered off into the sunset, hand in hand. Really need a little more kick in it than that.”

Eden heard a clank as of a horse’s hoofs on steel. His mount stumbled, and he reined it in sharply.

“What in Sam Hill’s that?” he asked.

“Oh⁠—that! It’s one of the half-buried rails of the old branch road⁠—a memento of a dream that never came true. Years ago they started to build a town over there under those cottonwoods, and the railroad laid down fifteen miles of track from the main line. A busy metropolis of the desert⁠—that’s what they meant it to be⁠—and there’s just one little old ruined house standing today. But that was the time of great expectations. They brought out crowds of people, and sold six hundred lots one hectic afternoon.”

“And the railroad?”

“Ran just one train⁠—and stopped. All they had was an engine and two old streetcars brought down from San Francisco. One of the cars has been demolished and the timber carried away, but the wreck of the other is still standing not far from here.”

Presently they mounted a ridge, and Bob Eden cried: “What do you know about that?”

There before them on the lonely desert, partly buried in the drifting sand, stood the remnant of a tramcar. It was tilted rakishly to one side, its windows were yellow with dust, but on the front, faintly decipherable still, was the legend “Market Street.”

At that familiar sight, Bob Eden felt a keen pang of nostalgia. He reined in his horse and sat staring at this symbol of the desert’s triumph over the proud schemes of man. Man had thought he could conquer, he had come with his engines and his dreams, and now an old battered tramcar stood alone as a warning and a threat.

“There’s your setting,” he said. “They drive out together and sit there on the steps, your lovers. What a background⁠—a car that once trundled from Twin Peaks to the Ferry, standing lonely and forlorn amid the cactus-plants!”

“Fine,” the girl answered. “I’m going to hire you to help me after this.”

They rode close to the car and dismounted. The girl unlimbered her camera and held it steady. “Don’t you want me in the picture?” Eden asked. “Just as a sample lover, you know.”

“No samples needed,” she laughed. The camera clicked. As it did so the two young people stood rooted to the desert in amazement. An old man had stepped suddenly from the interior of the car⁠—a bent old man with a coal-black beard.

Eden’s eyes sought those of the girl. “Last Wednesday night at Madden’s?” he inquired in a low voice.

She nodded. “The old prospector,” she replied.

The black-bearded one did not speak, but stood with a startled air on the front platform of that lost car, under the legend “Market Street.”