The bar-keeper shrugged his shoulders. "Ask me what the desert out
there's thinking, and I'll tell you what's going on inside the Pearl's
head. Say," animatedly, "I told you to ask me about those emeralds last
night, didn't I?"

The manager laughed shortly. "I saw 'em close, son, after I left you. I
know stones. Square cut emeralds. Lord! They sure cost some good man his
pile, and he was no piker, either."

"Bob Flick," said Jimmy, with a glow of local pride. "Kind of thank
offering, when the Pearl found him in the desert after he'd been lost
three days. Bob was new to this country then and reckless, like a
tenderfoot is, and the first thing he did was to go and get lost. Well,
they had several searching parties looking for him, but the Pearl, she
got on her horse and went after him alone, and, by George! she found
him, lying about gone in a dry arroyo.

"Bob said he'd been wandering round crazy as a loon, seeing three big
lions with eyes like coals of fire stalking him night and day, and him
always trying to dodge 'em. He says at last they came nearer and nearer
until he stumbled and fell, and then he felt their hot breath on his
cheek, and he knew nothing more until he finally realized that some one
was trying to pour water down his throat and he kind of half come to
himself; and suddenly, he said, that awful gray desert, worse than any
hell a man ever feared, seemed all kind and tender like a mother, and
then, some way, it burst into bloom, and that bloom was the Black Pearl
bending over him. Oh, you ought to hear him tell it! Well--she got him
up on her horse and got him home, and her and her mother nursed him back
to health. And since that time Bob ain't never felt the same about the