FAME WAITS UPON JOHNNY That day was a terrible one for Mary V.

The big car went lurching here and there over roads that never expected an automobile to travel them, and Mary V watched and hoped and would not give up when even her dad showed signs of yielding to heat and discouragement.
Before noon they had met the sheriff and some of his men, and had compared notes and given what information they could.

The sheriff, in a desert-scarred Ford loaded mostly with water and some emergency rations, had managed to scatter his men and yet keep in fairly close touch with them, and he seemed very sure that the search had been thorough as far as they had gone.

Young Jewel, he asserted, had not so much as dropped a handkerchief on the ground they had covered, or his men would certainly have found it.
This, while it served as a temporary relief from the dread of hearing the worst, merely postponed the full knowledge of a disaster which Mary V could not bear to contemplate.

They drove to a rendezvous previously agreed upon with Bill Hayden and gleaned what news the boys had to tell.