It was Roger's turn to blush and he did so thoroughly, while Dick burst into a roar of laughter in which the other men joined. Under its cover, Charley hustled Felicia off to bed.
At dawn the next day Roger and Dick started on their melancholy errand. The climbing was in many instances too precipitous for the horses and they made many detours. It was late in the afternoon, on a detour across a wide canyon that they came upon the end of the Von Minden drama. The canyon was really a part of the desert floor and was deep with sand. Roger it was, who first noted footprints.
"Look, Dick!" he called. "An Indian must have been here! Look at the naked footprints!"
Dick rode up beside him. "I wonder!" he said.
Both men glanced about them. "Yonder are some clothes, let's pick up this trail," suggested Dick.
"By Jove, it's Mrs. von Minden's pink wrapper!" cried Roger, "and over there are her shoes."
"Rog, we've got to brace ourselves," Dick pulled up his horse. "When folks thirst to death in the desert, they often strip off their clothes and run around in a big circle."
Roger bit his dry lips. "All right, Dick, come on," he muttered.
The foot marks swung in a wide circle. It was a mile farther on that they found the madam, stark naked, her gaunt face turned to the sky. She too had been dead for many days.
"I don't see why the buzzards didn't get her. Her burro wasn't Peter, he deserted her," murmured Dick. "Look, Rog, under her head."
It was the dispatch box, lightly sifted over with sand as was the body.
"What do you suppose happened?" asked Roger.
"She obviously thirsted to death. But she got the box first. Do you suppose she killed him, to get it?"
"Perhaps she found him dead and took it," suggested Roger.
"Well, we'll never know. Let's gather up what we can of her clothes and bury her. Poor old devil. Her story's ended," said Dick.
They dug Clarissa von Minden's grave and put her in it, then Dick pulled a prayer book from his pocket.
"Charley made me bring it," he explained. "I'm glad of it, now. Somehow it seems worse to chuck a woman away without a minister to help, than it does a man. I guess she did some tall suffering, from first to last, eh Rog?"
Roger nodded. Dick read the burial service reverently and they finished this gruesome job. Roger tied the little black metal box to his saddle and they started on their way. They made camp in the mountains that evening, not far from the peak that sheltered Von Minden. They had ample firewood for they camped near a clump of cedars and they went hastily through the contents of the dispatch box, by the light of the flames.