DESERT GOLD by Zane Grey - c.1913; 1914 1st Grosset Ed., F-O per the ZGWS, VG in a later ( 1930s) original Wendell Galloway Dust Jacket.  Early Grosset edition of Desert Gold in a later Grosset dust jacket by top artist Wendell Galloway; four interior illustrations by another top illustrator, Douglas Duer--most mass market editions carry none of the old illustrations. 

The ever fascinating and mysterious desert furnishes the scene for this story of the Mexican border. The story opens with a prologue in which two men, lost  in the desert, discover gold just at the time when, overcome by weakness and thirst, they can go no further. The rest of the story, dealing with people intimately related to these two, describes a recent uprising along the border, and ends with the finding of the hoard of gold which the two early prospectors, dying, had willed to the girl who is the heroine of the story. The story is full of dramatic and stirring incident; there are battles with Mexicans and long, weary, journeys across the desert; starvation and misery add to the tragic side and few merry cowboys contribute much humor and no little heroism.