I slept sweetly and soundly. I had no dreams, or only such as were
light, and forgotten with the return of consciousness.
It was late when I awoke. A bright sun was mounting into the blue and
cloudless sky. This orb was already many degrees above the horizon.
Hunger was the father of my first thought. I had eaten nothing since an
early hour of the preceding day, and then only the light _desayuna_ of
sweet-cake and chocolate. To one not accustomed to long fasting, a
single day without food will give some idea of the pain of hunger; that
pain will increase upon a second day, and by the third will have reached
its maximum. Upon the fourth and fifth, the body grows weaker, and the
brain becomes deranged; the nerve, however, is less acute, and though
the suffering is still intense, hunger is never harder to endure than
upon the second or third days.
Of course, these remarks apply only to those not habituated to long
fasts. I have known men who could endure hunger for six days, and feel
less pain than others under a fast of twenty-four hours. Indians or
prairie-hunters were those men, and fortunately for them that they are
endowed with such powers of endurance, often driven as they are into
circumstances of the most dire necessity. Truly, "the Lord tempers the
wind to the shorn lamb!"
As I have said, my first thought was of something to eat.
I rose to my feet, and with my eye swept the prairie in every direction:
no object living or dead, greeted my sight; beast or bird there was
none; my horse alone met my glance, quietly browsing on his trail-rope.
I could not help envying him, as I scanned his well-filled sides. I
thought of the bounty of the Creator in thus providing for his less
intelligent creatures--giving them the power to live where man would
starve. Who does not in this recognise the hand of a Providence?
I walked forward to the edge of the barranca, and looked over. It was a
grim abyss, over a hundred feet in depth, and about the same in width.
Its sides were less precipitous at this point. The escarpment rocks had
fallen in, and formed a sort of shelving bank, by which a man on foot
might have descended into its bed, and climbed out on the opposite side;
but it was not passable for a horse. Its cliffs were furrowed and
uneven; rocks jutted out and hung over; and in the seams grew cactus
plants, bramble, and small trees of dwarf cedar (_Juniperus prostrata_).
I looked into its channel. I had heard the torrent rolling down in the
night. I saw traces of the water among the rocks. A large body must
have passed, and yet not a cupful could now have been lifted from its
bed! What remained was fast filtering into the sand, or rising back to
the heavens upon the heated atmosphere.
I had brought with me my rifle, in hopes of espying some living
creature; but after walking for a considerable distance along the edge,
I abandoned the search. No trace of bird or quadruped could be found,
and I turned and went back to the place where I had slept.
To draw the picket-pin of my horse and saddle him, was the work of a few
minutes; this done, I began to bethink me of _where I was going_. Back
to the rancheria, of course!
That was the natural reply to such a question; but there was another far
less easily answered: How was I to find the way?
My design of the previous night--to follow back my own trail--was no
longer practicable. _The rain had effaced the tracks_! I remembered
that I had passed over wide stretches of light dusty soil, where the
hoof scarcely impressed itself. I remembered that the rain had been of
that character known as "planet showers," with large heavy drops, that,
in such places, must have blotted out every trace of the trail. To
follow the "back-track" was no longer possible.
I had not before thought of this difficulty; and now, that it presented
itself to my mind, it was accompanied by a new feeling of dread. I felt
that _I was lost_!
As you sit in your easy-chair, you may fancy that this is a mere
bagatelle--a little bewilderment that one may easily escape from who has
a good horse between his thighs. It is only to strike boldly out, and
by riding on _in a straight line_, you must in time arrive _somewhere_.
No doubt, that is your idea; but permit me to inform you that the
success of such a course depends very much upon circumstances. It would
indeed be trusting to blind chance. You might arrive "somewhere," and
that somewhere might be the very point from which you had started!
Do you fancy you can ride ten miles in a direct line over a prairie,
without a single object to guide you?
Be undeceived, then; you cannot!
The best mounted men have perished under such circumstances. It may
take days to escape out of a fifty-mile prairie, and days bring death.
Hunger and thirst soon gain strength and agony--the sooner that you know
you have not the wherewith to satisfy the one, nor quench the other.
Besides, there is in your very loneliness a feeling of bewilderment,
painful to an extreme degree, and from which only the oldest prairie-men
are free. Your senses lose half their power, your energy is diminished,
and your resolves become weak and vacillating. You feel doubtful at
each step, as to whether you be following the right path, and are ready
at every moment to turn into another. Believe me, it is a fearful thing
to be alone when lost upon the prairies!
I felt this keenly enough. I had been on the great plains before, but
it was the first time I had the misfortune to wander astray on them, and
I was the more terrified that I already hungered to no common degree.
There was something singular, too, in the circumstances that had brought
me into my present situation. The disappearance of the white steed--
although accounted for by perfectly natural causes--had left upon my
mind a strange impression. That he should have lured me so far, and
then eluded me in such a way! I could not help fancying design in it:
and fancying so, I could attribute such design only to a higher
intelligence--in fact, to some supernatural cause!
I was again on the edge of superstition. My mind began to give way and
yield itself to hideous fancies.
I struggled against such thoughts, and succeeded in rousing myself to
reflect upon some active measures for my safety.
I saw that it was of no use to remain where I was. I knew that I could
make a straight path for a couple of hours at least--the sun was in the
sky, and that would guide me--until near the meridian hours. Then I
should have to halt, and wait a while; for in that southern latitude,
and just at that time of the year, the sun at noon is so near the zenith
that a practised astronomer could not tell north from south.
I reflected that before noon I might reach the timber, though that would
not insure my safety. Even the naked plain is not more bewildering than
the openings of the mezquite groves and the chapparal that border it.
Among these you may travel for days without getting twenty miles from
your starting-point, and they are often as destitute of the means of
life as the desert itself!
Such were my reflections as I had saddled and bridled my horse, and
stood scanning the plain in order to make up my mind as to the direction
I should take.