Set in the end of the handle was a single clear stone of transparent yellow, a topaz likely, he thought. That had probably caught the light and his attention. Looking closely, he saw a handsome monogram engraved on the side and made out the letters H.R. But that told him nothing.

He lingered, one foot in the stirrup, the other still on the desert, surveying the elegant whip. Now who would be so foolish as to bring a thing like that into the desert? No lady riders were anywhere about that he knew, except the major’s sister at the military station, and she was given to simple accessories. This wasn’t hers, and tourists seldom came this way. What did it mean?

He sprang into the saddle and scanned the plain, but only the warm shimmer of sun-heated earth appeared. Nothing living could be seen. What should he do, and how could he find the owner and restore the lost property?

Soon they arrived at the waterhole. Brownleigh dismounted, his thoughts still on the little whip.

“It’s very strange, Billy. I can’t figure out a theory that suits me,” he mused aloud. “If someone’s ridden out this way and lost it, will that person return and look for it? Yet if I leave it where I found it, the sand might drift over it, or someone might steal it. Surely, in this sparsely settled country, I’ll hear of any strangers who might have carried such a foolish thing. Well, I guess we’ll take it with us, Billy. We’ll likely hear of its owner somewhere.”

The horse answered with a snort of satisfaction as he lifted his moist muzzle from the water’s edge and looked contentedly about.

The missionary unstrapped his saddle and flung it on the ground, unfastening the bag of corn chop and spreading it before his companion. Then he gathered a few sticks and started a small blaze. In a few minutes the water was bubbling in his folding tin cup for tea, and a bit of bacon was frying in a skillet beside it. Corn bread, tea, and sugar came from the capacious saddle pockets, and the two travelers had a good meal beneath the bright sky.

After Billy finished the corn chop, his long lashes drooped, and his nose hung down until it almost touched the ground. But his master, stretched at full length on that same ground nearby with his hat drawn over his eyes, couldn’t sleep. His thoughts were on the jeweled whip. He reached over for it and, shoving back his hat, watched the glinting of lights in the topaz, as the sun caught and tangled its beams in the sharp facets of the cutting. One reads life by details in that wide and lonely land, and this might mean something. But what? he wondered.

At last he dropped his hand and sat up, saying aloud with an upward glance, “Father, if there’s any reason why I should look for the owner, guide me.”

He spoke as if addressing someone present in his consciousness, with whom he was intimate. Then he stood up and, with a lighter heart, packed his things in the saddle, for he knew the burden was no longer his to bear.

They were soon on their way again, Billy swinging along with the realization of the nearness of home.

The trail now led toward hazy blue lines of mesas with crags and ridges here and there. Across the valley, looking like a cloud-shadow in the distance, lay a long black streak, the line of the canyon gorge. Its dim presence seemed to grow in the missionary’s thought as he drew closer. He hadn’t been to that canyon for over a month.

A few scattered Indians lived there with their families in corners where there was little soil. The thought of them drew him now. He must visit them soon. If Billy hadn’t traveled so far already, he’d go up there this afternoon.