DYING OF THIRST IN THE DESERT.
Matters were bad enough by the time Mr. Hobart's party reached Camp
Cady, nearly half way across the desert; but, from there on, they became
much worse. The line could no longer follow the winding government
trail, but must be run straight for the distant mountains, that were now
plainly to be seen.
This experience vividly recalled that of the preceding summer, when they
were crossing the Plains towards the Rocky Mountains, and longing so
eagerly to reach them. But this was infinitely worse than that. There
they generally found water that was sweet and fit to drink, and always
had plenty of grass for their stock. Here they rarely found water, and
when they did it was nearly always so strongly impregnated with salt,
soda, and alkali as to be unfit to drink. Here, too, instead of grass,
they found only sand, sage brush, greasewood, and cacti. To be sure the
greasewood was a comfort, because it burned just as readily green as
dry, and in certain of the cacti, round ones covered with long curved
spines, they could nearly always find a mouthful of water, but none of
these things afforded any nourishment for the hungry animals. They
became so ravenous that they gnawed off one another's manes and tails,
chewed up the wagon covers, and every other piece of cloth they could
get hold of. Then they began to die so fast from starvation and
exhaustion that some dead ones were left behind with every camp, and
each day the number was increased.
At nearly every camp, too, a wagon was abandoned, and for miles they
could look back and see its white cover, looming above the dreary
expanse of sand and sage, like a monument to the faithful animals that
had fallen beside it. At length but one wagon and the two ambulances
were left. Tents, baggage, clothing, all the bedding except one blanket
apiece, and the greater part of their provisions, had been thrown away,
or left in the abandoned wagons. Within forty miles of the mountains
they gave up work on the line. The men had no longer the strength to
drag the chain or carry the instruments. They still noted their course
by compass, and the height of various elevations as they crossed them,
by the barometer. They were even able to measure the distance from one
sad camping-place to another, by means of the odometer, an instrument
that, attached to a wagon-wheel, records the number of revolutions made
by it. This number, multiplied by the circumference of the wheel, gave
them the distance in feet and inches. Everybody was now on foot, even
the chief's saddle-horse, Senor, and Glen's Nettle being harnessed to
one of the ambulances.
At last, when the mountains appeared tantalizingly near, but when they
were still nearly twenty miles away, it seemed as though the end had
come. For two days neither men nor animals had tasted a drop of water.
At the close of the second day, a slight elevation had disclosed a lake
lying at their feet, glowing in the red beams of the setting sun. With
feeble strength they had rushed to it, and flung themselves into its
tempting waters. They were as salt as brine, and, with this bitter
disappointment, came despair. They lighted fires and made coffee with
the brackish water that oozed into holes dug in the salt-encrusted sand,
but it sickened them, and they could not drink it.
Their lips were cracked, their tongues swollen, their throats like dry
leather, and their voices were hardly more than husky whispers.
As the moon rose that evening, and poured its cold light on the
outstretched forms grouped about the solitary, white-sheeted wagon, a
hand was laid on Glen's shoulder, and the chief's voice bade the boy
rise and follow him. Leading the way to the ambulance in which Binney
Gibbs slept the sleep of utter exhaustion and despair, and to which the
horses Senor and Nettle were fastened, the general said,
"There is but one hope left for us, Matherson. It is certain that some
of the party have not strength enough to carry them to the mountains,
and equally so that, without water, the teams can never reach there. In
the valleys of these mountains are streams, and on these streams are
ranches. If we can get word to one of these, the entire party may yet be
saved. I am going to try and ride there to-night, and I want you to come
with me. Our horses, and yours in particular, are the freshest of all
the animals. I have told Mr. Hobart; but there is no need of rousing any
of the others to a sense of their misery. Will you make the attempt with
me?"
Of course the boy would go; and, for a moment, he almost forgot his
sufferings, in a feeling of pride that he should be selected for such an
undertaking.
A minute later they rode slowly away, and the desert sands so muffled
the sound of their horses' hoofs that their departure was not noted by
those whom they left.
With fresh, strong animals, and without that terrible choking thirst,
that night ride over the moonlight plain would have been a rare
pleasure. Under the circumstances it was like a frightful dream. Neither
of the riders cared to talk; the effort was too painful; but both
thought of the last ride they had taken together in the cab of a
locomotive on a Missouri railroad, and the man looked tenderly at the
boy, as he recalled the incidents of that night. For an hour they rode
in silence, their panting steeds maintaining a shambling gait through
the sand, that was neither a trot nor a lope, but a mixture of the two.
Then they dropped into a walk, and, for another hour, were only roused
to greater speed by infinite exertions on the part of their riders. At
last Senor stumbled heavily, recovered himself, and then fell.
"There is no use trying to get him up again," said the chief. "I'm
afraid the poor old horse is done for; but you must ride on, and I will
follow on foot. Head for that dark space. It marks a valley. I shall not
be far behind you. If you find water, fire your pistol. The sound will
give me new strength. Good-bye, and may God prosper you."
[Illustration: "'HEAD FOR THAT DARK SPACE. IT MARKS A VALLEY.... IF YOU
FIND WATER, FIRE YOUR PISTOL.'"]
"But I hate to leave you, sir."
"Never mind me; hurry on. A moment wasted now may be at the price of a
life."
So Glen went on alone, trying, in husky tones, to encourage his brave
little mare, and urge her to renewed efforts. She seemed to realize that
this was a struggle for life, and responded nobly. She even broke into a
lope, as the ground became harder. The sand was disappearing. Water
might be nearer than they thought.
Five miles farther Nettle carried her rider, and then she staggered
beneath his weight. She could not bear him a rod farther, and he knew
it. A choking sob rose in the boy's parched throat as he dismounted and
left her standing there, the plucky steed that had brought him so far
and so faithfully; but he could not stay with her, he must go on. He
could see the opening to the valley plainly now, though it was still
some miles away; and, summoning all his strength, he walked towards it.
At half the distance he was skirting a foot-hill, when down its gravelly
side, directly towards him, rushed two animals, like great dogs. They
were mountain-wolves at play, one chasing the other, and they came on,
apparently without seeing him. When, with a hoarse cry, he attracted
their attention, they stopped, and, sitting on their haunches, not more
than a couple of rods away, gazed at him curiously.
He dared not fire at them, for fear of only wounding one and thus
arousing their fury. Nor did he wish to raise false hopes in the mind of
General Elting, who might hear the shot and think it meant water.
Some one had told him of the cowardice of wolves. He would try it.
Picking up a stone, he flung it at them, at the same time running
forward, brandishing his arms, and giving a feeble shout. They sprang
aside, hesitated a moment, and then turned tail and fled.
Soon afterwards Glen reached the valley, which was apparently about half
a mile broad. On its farther side was a line of shadow blacker than the
rest. It might be timber. With tottering footsteps the boy staggered
towards it. As his feet touched a patch of grass he could have knelt and
kissed it, but at the same instant he heard the most blessed sound on
earth, the trickling of a rivulet. He fell as he reached it, and plunged
his head into the life-giving water. It was warm and strongly
impregnated with sulphur; but never had he tasted anything so delicious,
nor will he ever again.
Had it been cold water, the amount that he drank might have killed him;
as it was, it only made him sick. After a while he recovered, and then
how he gloated in that tiny stream. How he bathed his hands and face,
and, suddenly, how he wished the others were there with him. Perhaps a
shot might bear the joyful news to the ears of the general.
With the thought he drew his revolver, and roused the mountain echoes
with its six shots, fired in quick succession. Then he tried to walk up
the valley in the hope of finding a ranch. It was all he could do to
keep on his feet, and only a mighty effort of will restrained him from
flinging himself down on the grass and going to sleep beside that stream
of blessed water.
A few minutes later there came a quick rush of hoofs from up the valley,
and in the moonlight he saw two horsemen galloping towards him. They
dashed up with hurried questions as to the firing they had heard, and,
somehow, he managed to make them understand that a party of white men
were dying of thirst twenty miles out on the desert.
The next thing he knew, he was in a house, and dropping into a sleep of
such utter weariness that to do anything else would have been beyond his
utmost power of mind or body.