Stewart Edward White

“ We plodded along until late afternoon, toiling up one hill and down, on only to repeat immediately. Towards sundown we made the second bay where we plunged into the sea, clothes and all, and were greatly refreshed. I suppose a man absorbs a good deal that way. Anyhow, it always seemed to help.
We were now pretty hungry, and as we walked along the shore, we began to look for turtles or shell-fish or anything else that might come handy. There was nothing. Schwartz wanted to stop for a night's rest; but Denton and I knew better than that. ”

“ When we could hold no more we lit pipes. Then we had leisure to notice that the storm-cloud was mounting in a portentous silence to the zenith, quenching the brilliant desert stars.
As soon as we had come to a definite conclusion that it was going to rain, we deserted the camp-fire and went rustling for our blankets. At the end of ten minutes every bed was safe within the doors of the abandoned adobe ranch house, each owner recumbent on the floor claim he had pre-empted, and every man hoping fervently that he had guessed right as to the location of leaks. ”

“ He could not see me, that was evident, nor hear me, but some instinct not yet decayed turned him toward a new presence in the room. In my wild desire for water I found room to think that here was a man even worse off than myself.
A vessel of water was in the corner. I drank it. It was more than I could hold, but I drank even after I was filled, and the waste ran from the corners of my mouth. I had forgotten Schwartz. The excess made me a little sick, but I held down what I had swallowed, and I really believed it soaked into my system as it does into the desert earth after a drought. ”

“ There were lots of fishing boats in the harbor, and we hired one and a man to run it for next to nothing a week. We laid a course north, and in six days anchored in our bay.
I tell you, it looked queer. There were the charred sticks of the fire, and the coffee-pot lying on its side. We took off our hats at poor Billy's grave a minute; and then climbed over the cholla-covered hill carrying our picks and shovels and the canvas sacks to take the treasure away in. ”

“ A man is just as likely to strike water going in a straight line as he is going in a circle; and then, besides, he's getting somewhere."
"Correct," said Denton.
"So," I finished, "I reckon we'd better follow the coast south and try to get to Mollyhay."
We took stock of what we had to depend on. The total assets proved to be just three pairs of legs. A pot of coffee had been on the fire, but that villain had kicked it over when he left.
So without any further delay we set up the ridge I had started to cross that morning. Schwartz lagged, sulky as a muley cow, but we managed to keep him with us. ”

“ We were pretty tough and strong for all of us had been used to hard living, but after the third day without anything to eat and no water to drink, it came to be pretty hard going. It got to the point where we had to have some reason for getting out besides just keeping alive. A man would sometimes rather die than keep alive, anyway, if it came only to that. But I know I made up my mind I was going to get out so I could smash up that Anderson; and I reckon Denton had the same idea. Schwartz didn't say anything ”

“ Inside my circle I could see the sand quite plainly and Denton's footprints. If I moved a little to the left, the wash of the waters would lap under the edge of that gray curtain. If I moved to the right, I came to cliffs. The nearer I drew to them, the farther up I could see; but I could never see to the top.
One day, without any apparent reason, I moved at right angles across the beach. Directly before me lay a piece of sugar-cane; and one end of it had been chewed.
Do you know what that meant? Animals don't cut sugar-cane and bring it to the beach and chew one end. ”

“ V—The Calabash Stew I had agreed with Denton to stick to the beach; but Schwartz could not last much longer, and I had not the slightest idea how far it might prove to be to Mollyhay. So I turned up the trail.
We climbed a mountain ten thousand feet high. I mean that; and I know, for I've climbed them that high, and I know just how it feels, and how many times you have to rest, and how long it takes, and how much it knocks out of you. Those are the things that count in measuring height, and so I tell you we climbed that far. ”

“ Maybe there was when that chart was made. It was a long time ago. And anyway, the old pirate was a sailor, and no plainsman, and maybe he mistook rain-water for a spring. We've looked around this end of the bay. The chances are we'd use up two or three days exploring around the other, and then wouldn't be as well off as we are right now."
"Which way?" asked Denton again, mighty brief.
"Well," said I, "there's one thing I've always noticed in case of folks held up by the desert; they generally go wandering about here and there looking for water until they die not far from where they got lost. ”

“ I—The Sailor with One Hand I came from Texas, like the hulk of you punchers, but a good while before the most of you were born. That was forty-odd years ago—and I've been on the Colorado River ever since. That's why they call me Colorado Rogers.
At the time I speak of I was hanging out at Yuma.
We had every sort of people with us off and on, and as I was lookout at a popular game I saw them all. One evening I was on my way home about two o'clock of a moonlit night, when on the edge of the shadow I stumbled over a body lying part across the footway. ”

“ By now it was getting towards sundown, so we built us a fire of mesquite on the beach, made us supper, and boiled a pot of beans.
We talked it over. The water was about gone.
"That's what we've got to find first," said Simpson, "no question of it. It's God knows how far to the next water, and we don't know how long it will take us to get there in that little boat. If we run our water entirely out before we start, we're going to be in trouble. We'll have a good look tomorrow; and if we don't find her, we'll run down to Mollyhay [1] and get a few extra casks." ”

“ Schwartz threw away a gold piece as another man would take a stimulant. Gradually, without really thinking about it, I came to see this; and then went on to sabe why Denton picked up the coins; and a great admiration for Denton's cleverness seeped through me like water through the sand. He was saving the coins to keep Schwartz going. When the last coin went, Schwartz would give out. It all sounds queer now ”

“ We started at once, before the sun would be hot. The hill I had to climb was steep and covered with chollas, so I didn't get along very fast. When I was about half way to the top, I heard a shot from the beach. I looked back. Anderson was in the small boat, rowing rapidly out to the vessel. Denton was running up the beach from one direction, and Schwartz from the other. I slid and slipped down the bluff, getting pretty well stuck up with the cholla spines.
At the beach we found Billy Simpson lying on his face, shot through the back. We turned him over, but he was apparently dead. ”

“ Schwartz was to explore up the beach to the left, and Denton to the right. Anderson said he would wait for Billy Simpson, who had overslept in the darkness of the cubby-hole, and who was now paddling ashore. The two of them would push inland to the west until a high hill would give them a chance to look around for greenery. ”

“ I took him because he was a friend of Billy's, and besides was young and strong, and was the only man in town excepting the sailor, Anderson, who knew anything about running a boat. I forgot to say that the Texas fellow was named Denton.
We worked the open boat we got, up to Yuma partly with oars and partly by sails. Then we loaded her with grub for a month. In addition we put in picks and shovels: and a small cask of water. Handy Solomon said that would be enough, as there was water marked down on his chart. We told the gang that we were going trading. ”

“ I asked.
"Treasure," said he.
"H'm," said I.
I examined him closely. He looked all right enough, neither drunk nor loco.
"Sit down," said I—"over there; the other side the table." He did so. "Now fire away," said I.
He told me his name was Solomon Anderson, but that he was generally known as Handy Solomon, on account of his hook; that he had always followed the sea; that lately he had coasted the west shores of Mexico; that at Guyamas he had fallen in with Spanish friends, in company with whom he had visited the mines in the Sierra Madre ”

“ It was of the sort made to declaim against the sea or the rush of rivers or, as here, the fall of waters and the thunder—full, from the chest, with the caressing throat vibration that gives color to the most ordinary statements. ”