IV
There came a morning when the sun shone angry and red through a dull,smoky haze.
"We're in for sandstorms," said Cameron.
They had scarcely covered a mile when a desert-wide, moaning, yellowwall of flying sand swooped down upon them. Seeking shelter in the leeof a rock, they waited, hoping the storm was only a squall, such asfrequently whipped across the open places. The moan increased to aroar, and the dull red slowly dimmed, to disappear in the yellow pall,and the air grew thick and dark. Warren slipped the packs from theburros. Cameron feared the sandstorms had arrived some weeks ahead oftheir usual season.
The men covered their heads and patiently waited. The long hoursdragged, and the storm increased in fury. Cameron and Warren wetscarfs with water from their canteens, and bound them round theirfaces, and then covered their heads. The steady, hollow bellow offlying sand went on. It flew so thickly that enough sifted down underthe shelving rock to weight the blankets and almost bury the men. Theywere frequently compelled to shake off the sand to keep from beingborne to the ground. And it was necessary to keep digging out thepacks. The floor of their shelter gradually rose higher and higher.They tried to eat, and seemed to be grinding only sand between theirteeth. They lost the count of time. They dared not sleep, for thatwould have meant being buried alive. The could only crouch close to theleaning rock, shake off the sand, blindly dig out their packs, andevery moment gasp and cough and choke to fight suffocation.
The storm finally blew itself out. It left the prospectors heavy andstupid for want of sleep. Their burros had wandered away, or had beenburied in the sand. Far as eye could reach the desert had marvelouslychanged; it was now a rippling sea of sand dunes. Away to the northrose the peak that was their only guiding mark. They headed toward it,carrying a shovel and part of their packs.
At noon the peak vanished in the shimmering glare of the desert. Theprospectors pushed on, guided by the sun. In every wash they tried forwater. With the forked peach branch in his hands Warren alwayssucceeded in locating water. They dug, but it lay too deep. Atlength, spent and sore, they fell and slept through that night and partof the next day. Then they succeeded in getting water, and quenchedtheir thirst, and filled the canteens, and cooked a meal.
The burning day found them in an interminably wide plain, where therewas no shelter from the fierce sun. The men were exceedingly carefulwith their water, though there was absolute necessity of drinking alittle every hour. Late in the afternoon they came to a canyon thatthey believed was the lower end of the one in which they had last foundwater. For hours they traveled toward its head, and, long after nighthad set, found what they sought. Yielding to exhaustion, they slept,and next day were loath to leave the waterhole. Cool night spurredthem on with canteens full and renewed strength.
Morning told Cameron that they had turned back miles into the desert,and it was desert new to him. The red sun, the increasing heat, andespecially the variety and large size of the cactus plants warnedCameron that he had descended to a lower level. Mountain peaks loomedon all sides, some near, others distant; and one, a blue spur,splitting the glaring sky far to the north, Cameron thought herecognized as a landmark. The ascent toward it was heartbreaking, notin steepness, but in its league-and-league-long monotonous rise.Cameron knew there was only one hope--to make the water hold out andnever stop to rest. Warren began to weaken. Often he had to halt. Theburning white day passed, and likewise the night, with its white starsshining so pitilessly cold and bright.
Cameron measured the water in his canteen by its weight. Evaporationby heat consumed as much as he drank. During one of the rests, when hehad wetted his parched mouth and throat, he found opportunity to pour alittle water from his canteen into Warren's.
At first Cameron had curbed his restless activity to accommodate thepace of his elder comrade. But now he felt that he was losingsomething of his instinctive and passionate zeal to get out of thedesert. The thought of water came to occupy his mind. He began toimagine that his last little store of water did not appreciablydiminish. He knew he was not quite right in his mind regarding water;nevertheless, he felt this to be more of fact than fancy, and he beganto ponder.
When next they rested he pretended to be in a kind of stupor; but hecovertly watched Warren. The man appeared far gone, yet he hadcunning. He cautiously took up Cameron's canteen and poured water intoit from his own.
This troubled Cameron. The old irritation at not being able to thwartWarren returned to him. Cameron reflected, and concluded that he hadbeen unwise not to expect this very thing. Then, as his comradedropped into weary rest, he lifted both canteens. If there were anywater in Warren's, it was only very little. Both men had been enduringthe terrible desert thirst, concealing it, each giving his water to theother, and the sacrifice had been useless.
Instead of ministering to the parched throats of one or both, the waterhad evaporated. When Cameron made sure of this, he took one moredrink, the last, and poured the little water left into Warren'scanteen. He threw his own away.
Soon afterward Warren discovered the loss.
"Where's your canteen?" he asked.
"The heat was getting my water, so I drank what was left."
"My son!" said Warren.
The day opened for them in a red and green hell of rock and cactus.Like a flame the sun scorched and peeled their faces. Warren wentblind from the glare, and Cameron had to lead him. At last Warrenplunged down, exhausted, in the shade of a ledge.
Cameron rested and waited, hopeless, with hot, weary eyes gazing downfrom the height where he sat. The ledge was the top step of a raggedgigantic stairway. Below stretched a sad, austere, and lonely valley.A dim, wide streak, lighter than the bordering gray, wound down thevalley floor. Once a river had flowed there, leaving only a forlorntrace down the winding floor of this forlorn valley.
Movement on the part of Warren attracted Cameron's attention. Evidentlythe old prospector had recovered his sight and some of his strength,for he had arisen, and now began to walk along the arroyo bed with hisforked peach branch held before him. He had clung to the precious bitof wood. Cameron considered the prospect for water hopeless, becausehe saw that the arroyo had once been a canyon, and had been filled withsands by desert winds. Warren, however, stopped in a deep pit, and,cutting his canteen in half, began to use one side of it as a scoop.He scooped out a wide hollow, so wide that Cameron was certain he hadgone crazy. Cameron gently urged him to stop, and then forcibly triedto make him. But these efforts were futile. Warren worked with slow,ceaseless, methodical movement. He toiled for what seemed hours.Cameron, seeing the darkening, dampening sand, realized a wonderfulpossibility of water, and he plunged into the pit with the other halfof the canteen. Then both men toiled, round and round the wide hole,down deeper and deeper. The sand grew moist, then wet. At the bottomof the deep pit the sand coarsened, gave place to gravel. Finally waterwelled in, a stronger volume than Cameron ever remembered finding onthe desert. It would soon fill the hole and run over. He marveled atthe circumstance. The time was near the end of the dry season.Perhaps an underground stream flowed from the range behind down to thevalley floor, and at this point came near to the surface. Cameron hadheard of such desert miracles.
The finding of water revived Cameron's flagging hopes. But they wereshort-lived. Warren had spend himself utterly.
"I'm done. Don't linger," he whispered. "My son, go--go!"
Then he fell. Cameron dragged him out of the sand pit to a shelteredplace under the ledge. While sitting beside the failing man Camerondiscovered painted images on the wall. Often in the desert he hadfound these evidences of a prehistoric people. Then, from long habit,he picked up a piece of rock and examined it. Its weight made himclosely scrutinize it. The color was a peculiar black. He scrapedthrough the black rust to find a piece of gold. Around him layscattered heaps of black pebbles and bits of black, weathered rock andpieces of broken ledge, and they showed gold.
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br /> "Warren! Look! See it! Feel it! Gold!"
But Warren had never cared, and now he was too blind to see.
"Go--go!" he whispered.
Cameron gazed down the gray reaches of the forlorn valley, andsomething within him that was neither intelligence noremotion--something inscrutably strange--impelled him to promise.
Then Cameron built up stone monuments to mark his gold strike. Thatdone, he tarried beside the unconscious Warren. Moments passed--grewinto hours. Cameron still had strength left to make an effort to getout of the desert. But that same inscrutable something which hadordered his strange involuntary promise to Warren held him beside hisfallen comrade. He watched the white sun turn to gold, and then to redand sink behind mountains in the west. Twilight stole into the arroyo.It lingered, slowly turning to gloom. The vault of blue black lightenedto the blinking of stars. Then fell the serene, silent, luminous desertnight.
Cameron kept his vigil. As the long hours wore on he felt creep overhim the comforting sense that he need not forever fight sleep. A wanglow flared behind the dark, uneven horizon, and a melancholy misshapenmoon rose to make the white night one of shadows. Absolute silenceclaimed the desert. It was mute. Then that inscrutable somethingbreathed to him, telling him when he was alone. He need not havelooked at the dark, still face beside him.
Another face haunted Cameron's--a woman's face. It was there in thewhite moonlit shadows; it drifted in the darkness beyond; it softened,changed to that of a young girl, sweet, with the same dark, hauntingeyes of her mother. Cameron prayed to that nameless thing within him,the spirit of something deep and mystical as life. He prayed to thatnameless thing outside, of which the rocks and the sand, the spikedcactus and the ragged lava, the endless waste, with its vast star-firedmantle, were but atoms. He prayed for mercy to a woman--for happinessto her child. Both mother and daughter were close to him then. Timeand distance were annihilated. He had faith--he saw into the future.The fateful threads of the past, so inextricably woven with his error,wound out their tragic length here in this forlorn desert.
Cameron then took a little tin box from his pocket, and, opening it,removed a folded certificate. He had kept a pen, and now he wrotesomething upon the paper, and in lieu of ink he wrote with blood. Themoon afforded him enough light to see; and, having replaced the paper,he laid the little box upon a shelf of rock. It would remain thereunaffected by dust, moisture, heat, time. How long had those paintedimages been there clear and sharp on the dry stone walls? There wereno trails in that desert, and always there were incalculable changes.Cameron saw this mutable mood of nature--the sands would fly and seepand carve and bury; the floods would dig and cut; the ledges wouldweather in the heat and rain; the avalanches would slide; the cactusseeds would roll in the wind to catch in a niche and split the soilwith thirsty roots. Years would pass. Cameron seemed to see them,too; and likewise destiny leading a child down into this forlorn waste,where she would find love and fortune, and the grave of her father.
Cameron covered the dark, still face of his comrade from the light ofthe waning moon.
That action was the severing of his hold on realities. They fell awayfrom him in final separation. Vaguely, dreamily he seemed to beholdhis soul. Night merged into gray day; and night came again, weird anddark. Then up out of the vast void of the desert, from the silence andillimitableness, trooped his phantoms of peace. Majestically theyformed around him, marshalling and mustering in ceremonious state, andmoved to lay upon him their passionless serenity.