CHAPTER XX
THE DROUGHT
For a year the shadowy clouds had flitted past Hidden Water, driftinglike flocks of snowy birds to their resting-place against the Peaks,and as the wind raged and the darkness gathered the cattle had raisedtheir heads and bellowed, sniffing the wet air. In Summer thethunder-heads had mounted to high heaven and spread from east to west;the heat lightning had played along the horizon at night, restless andincessant; the sky had turned black and the south wind had rushed up,laden with the smell of distant showers. At last the rain had fallen,graciously, bringing up grass and browse, and flowers for those whosought them. But all the time the water lay in black pools along theshrunken river, trickling among the rocks and eddying around hugesnags of driftwood, clear, limpid, sparkling, yet always less andless.
Where the winter floods had scoured the lowlands clear, a fuzz of babytrees sprang up, growing to a rank prosperity and dying suddenlybeneath the sun. Along the river's edge little shreds of watercresstook root and threw out sprouts and blossoms; the clean water broughtforth snaky eel-grass and scum which fed a multitude of fishes; in theshadows of deep rocks the great bony-tails and Colorado River salmonlay in contented shoals, like hogs in wallows, but all the time thewater grew less and less. At every shower the Indian wheat sprang upon the mesas, the myriad grass-seeds germinated and struggled forth,sucking the last moisture from the earth to endow it with more seeds.In springtime the deep-rooted mesquites and _palo verdes_ threw outthe golden halo of their flowers until the canyons were aflame; thesoggy _sahuaros_ drank a little at each sparse downpour and defied thedrought; all the world of desert plants flaunted their pigmented greenagainst the barren sky as if in grim contempt; but the little streamsran weaker and weaker, creeping along under the sand to escape thepitiless sun.
As Creede and Hardy rode out from Hidden Water, the earth lay deadbeneath their horses' feet--stark and naked, stripped to the rocks bythe sheep. Even on Bronco Mesa the ground was shorn of its covering;the cloven hoofs of the sheep had passed over it like a scalpingknife, tearing off the last sun-blasted fringe of grass. In openspaces where they had not found their way the gaunt cattle stillcurled their hungry tongues beneath the bushes and fetched out spearsof grass, or licked the scanty Indian wheat from the earth itself.
With lips as tough and leathery as their indurated faces, the hardiestof them worked their way into bunches of stick-cactus and _chollas_,breaking down the guard of seemingly impenetrable spines and munchingon the juicy stalks; while along the ridges long-necked cows bobbedfor the high browse which the sheep had been unable to reach.
The famine was upon them; their hips stood out bony and unsightlyabove their swollen stomachs as they racked across the benches, andtheir eyes were wild and haggard. But to the eye of Creede, educatedby long experience, they were still strong and whole. The weaklingswere those that hung about the water, foot-sore from their longjourneyings to the distant hills and too weary to return. At thespring-hole at Carrizo they found them gathered, the runts and roughsof the range; old cows with importunate calves bunting at theirflaccid udders; young heifers, unused to rustling for two; _orehannas_with no mothers to guide them to the feed; rough steers that had been"busted" and half-crippled by some reckless cowboy--all theunfortunate and incapable ones, standing dead-eyed and hopeless orlimping stiffly about.
A buzzard rose lazily from a carcass as they approached, and theypaused to note the brand. Then Creede shook his head bodingly and rodeinto the bunch by the spring. At a single glance the _rodeo_ bossrecognized each one of them and knew from whence he came. He jumpedhis horse at a wild steer and started him toward the ridges; the cowswith calves he rounded up more gently, turning them into the uppertrail; the _orehannas_, poor helpless orphans that they were, followedhopefully, leaving one haggard-eyed old stag behind.
Creede looked the retreating band over critically and shook his headagain.
"Don't like it," he observed, briefly; and then, unlocking theponderous padlock that protected their cabin from hungry sheepmen, hewent in and fetched out the axe. "Guess I'll cut a tree for that oldstiff," he said.
From his stand by the long troughs where all the mountain cattlewatered in Summer, the disconsolate old stag watched the felling ofthe tree curiously; then after an interval of dreary contemplation, heracked his hide-bound skeleton over to the place and began to browse.Presently the rocks began to clatter on the upper trail, and an oldcow that had been peering over the brow of the hill came back to gether share. Even her little calf, whose life had been cast in thornyways, tried his new teeth on the tender ends and found them good. The_orehannas_ drifted in one after the other, and other cows withcalves, and soon there was a little circle about the tree-top,munching at the soft, brittle twigs.
"Well, that settles it," said Creede. "One of us stays here and cutsbrush, and the other works around Hidden Water. This ain't the firstdrought I've been through, not by no means, and I've learned thismuch: the Alamo can be dry as a bone and Carrizo, too, but they'salways water here and at the home ranch. Sooner or later every cow onthe range will be goin' to one place or the other to drink, and if wegive 'em a little bait of brush each time it keeps 'em from gittin'too weak. As long as a cow will rustle she's all right, but the minuteshe's too weak to travel she gits to be a water-bum--hangs around thespring and drinks until she starves to death. But if you feed 'em alittle every day they'll drift back to the ridges at night and pick upa little more. I'm sorry for them lily-white hands of yourn, pardner,but which place would you like to work at?"
"Hidden Water," replied Hardy, promptly, "and I bet I can cut as manytrees as you can."
"I'll go you, for a fiver," exclaimed Creede, emulously. "Next timeRafael comes in tell him to bring me up some more grub and baled hay,and I'm fixed. And say, when you write to the boss you can tell herI've traded my gun for an axe!"
As Hardy turned back towards home he swung in a great circle and rodedown the dry bed of the Alamo, where water-worn bowlders and ricks ofmountain drift lay strewn for miles to mark the vanished stream. Whata power it had been in its might, floating sycamores and ironwoods asif they were reeds, lapping high against the granite walls, moving thevery rocks in its bed until they ground together! But now the sand laydry and powdery, the willows and water-moodies were dead to the roots,and even the ancient cottonwoods from which it derived its name weredying inch by inch. A hundred years they had stood there, defyingstorm and cloudburst, but at last the drought was sucking away theirlife. On the mesa the waxy greasewood was still verdant, the gorged_sahuaros_ stood like great tanks, skin-tight with bitter juice, andall the desert trees were tipped with green; but the children of theriver were dying for a drink.
A string of cattle coming in from The Rolls stopped and stared at thesolitary horseman, head up against the sky; then as he rode on theyfell in behind him, travelling the deep-worn trail that led to HiddenWater. At the cleft-gate of the pass, still following the hard-stampedtrail, Hardy turned aside from his course and entered, curious to seehis garden again before it succumbed to the drought. There before himstood the sycamores, as green and flourishing as ever; the eaglesoared out from his cliff; the bees zooned in their caves; and beyondthe massive dyke that barred the way the tops of the elders waved thelast of their creamy blossoms. In the deep pool the fish still dartedabout, and the waterfall that fed it was not diminished. The tinkle ofits music seemed even louder, and as Hardy looked below he saw that alittle stream led way from the pool, flowing in the trench where thecattle came to drink. It was a miracle, springing from the bosom ofthe earth from whence the waters come. When all the world outside laydead and bare, Hidden Water flowed more freely, and its garden livedon untouched.
Never had Hardy seen it more peaceful, and as he climbed theIndian steps and stood beneath the elder, where _Chupa Rosa_ hadbuilt her tiny nest his heart leapt suddenly as he remembered Lucy.Here they had sat together in the first gladness of her coming,reading his forgotten verse and watching the eagle's flight; only for
that one time, and then the fight with the sheep had separated them.He reached up and plucked a spray of elder blossoms to send her for akeep-sake--and then like a blow he remembered the forget-me-not! Fromthat same garden he had fetched her a forget-me-not for repentance,and then forgotten her for Kitty. Who but Lucy could have left thelittle book of poems, or treasured a flower so long to give it backat parting? And yet in his madness he had forgotten her!
He searched wistfully among the rocks for another forget-me-not, butthe hot breath of the drought had killed them. As he climbed slowlydown the stone steps he mused upon some poem to take the place of theflowers that were dead, but the spirit of the drought was everywhere.The very rocks themselves, burnt black by centuries of sun, werepainted with Indian prayers for rain. A thousand times he had seen thesign, hammered into the blasted rocks--the helix, that mystic symbolof the ancients, a circle, ever widening, never ending,--and wonderedat the fate of the vanished people who had prayed to the Sun forrain.
The fragments of their sacrificial _ollas_ lay strewn among thebowlders, but the worshippers were dead; and now a stranger prayed tohis own God for rain. As he sat at his desk that night writing to Lucyabout the drought, the memory of those Indian signs came upon himsuddenly and, seizing a fresh sheet of paper, he began to write. Atthe second stanza he paused, planned out his rhymes and hurried onagain, but just as his poem seemed finished, he halted at the lastline. Wrestle as he would he could not finish it--the rhymes wereagainst him--it would not come right. Ah, that is what sets the artistapart from all the under-world of dreamers--his genius endures to theend; but the near-poet struggles like a bee limed in his own honey.What a confession of failure it was to send away--a poem unfinished,or finished wrong! And yet--the unfinished poem was like him. Howoften in the past had he left things unsaid, or said them wrong.Perhaps Lucy would understand the better and prize it for its faults.At last, just as it was, he sent it off, and so it came to her hand.
A PRAYER FOR RAIN
Upon this blasted rock, O Sun, behold Our humble prayer for rain--and here below A tribute from the thirsty stream, that rolled Bank-full in flood, but now is sunk so low Our old men, tottering, yet may stride acrost And babes run pattering where the wild waves tossed.
The grass is dead upon the stem, O Sun! The lizards pant with heat--they starve for flies-- And they for grass--and grass for rain! Yea, none Of all that breathe may face these brazen skies And live, O Sun, without the touch of rain. Behold, thy children lift their hands--in vain!
Drink up the water from this _olla's_ brim And take the precious corn here set beside-- Then summon thy dark clouds, and from the rim Of thy black shield strike him who hath defied Thy power! Appease thy wrath, Great Sun--but give Ah, give the touch of rain to those that live!
As it had been a thousand years before, so it was that day at HiddenWater. The earth was dead, it gave forth nothing; the sky was cleanand hard, without a cloud to soften its asperity. Another month andthe cattle would die; two months and the water would fail; then in thelast agonies of starvation and thirst the dissolution would come--theFour Peaks would be a desert. Old Don Pablo was right, the world wasdrying up. Chihuahua and Sonora were parched; all Arizona lay strickenwith the drought; in California the cattle were dying on the ranges,and in Texas and New Mexico the same. God, what a thing--to see thegreat earth that had supported its children for ages slowly dying forwater, its deserts first, and then its rivers, and then thepine-topped mountains that gave the rivers birth! Yet what was therefor a man to do but take care of his own and wait? The rest was in thehands of God.
On the first morning that Hardy took his axe and went down to theriver he found a single bunch of gaunted cattle standing in the shadeof the big mesquites that grew against Lookout Point--a runty cowwith her two-year-old and yearling, and a wobbly calf with a cactusjoint stuck across his nose. His mother's face showed that she, too,had been among the _chollas_; there was cactus in her knees and longspines bristling from her jaws, but she could stand it, while it was amatter of life and death to the calf. Every time he came near hismother she backed away, and whenever he began to nudge for milk shekicked out wildly. So Hardy roped him and twitched the joint away witha stick; then he pulled out the thorns one by one and went about hiswork.
Selecting a fine-leaved _palo verde_ that grew against the point, hecleared a way into its trunk and felled it down the hill. He cut asecond and a third, and when he looked back he saw that his labor wasappreciated; the runty cow was biting eagerly at the first tree-top,and the wobbly calf was restored to his own. As the sound of the axecontinued, a band of tame cattle came stringing down the sandyriverbed, and before the morning was over there were ten or twentyderelicts and water-bums feeding along the hillside. In the afternoonhe cut more trees along the trail to Hidden Water, and the next daywhen he went to work he found a little band of weaklings there,lingering expectantly in the shadow of the canyon wall. As the dayswent by more and more of them gathered about the water, the lame, thesick, the crippled, the discouraged, waiting for more trees to befelled. Then as the feed on the distant ridges grew thinner and thenumber of cut trees increased, a great band of them hung about thevicinity of the ranch house constantly--the herds from Hidden Waterand the river, merged into one--waiting to follow him to the hills.
For a mile up and down the canyon of the Alamo, the _palo verde_ stumpsdotted the hillside, each with its top below it, stripped to the barkand bared of every twig. As the breathless heat of July came on, Hardywas up before dawn, hewing and felling, and each day the long line ofcattle grew. They trampled at his heels like an army, gaunt,emaciated; mothers mooing for their calves that lay dead along thegulches; mountain bulls and outlaws, tamed by gnawing hunger andweakness, and the awful stroke of the heat. And every day other bandsof outlaws, driven at last from their native hills, drifted in toswell the herd. For a month Hardy had not seen a human face, nor hadhe spoken to any living creature except Chapuli or some poor cow thatlay dying by the water. When he was not cutting trees on the fartherridges, he was riding along the river, helping up those that hadfallen or dragging away the dead.
Worn and foot-sore, with their noses stuck full of cactus joints,their tongues swollen from the envenomed thorns, their stomachs afirefrom thirst and the burden of bitter stalks, the wild cattle from theridges would stagger down to the river and drink until their flanksbulged out and their bellies hung heavy with water. Then, overcomewith fatigue and heat, they would sink down in the shade and liedreaming; their limbs would stiffen and cramp beneath them until theycould not move; and there they would lie helpless, writhing theirscrawny necks as they struggled to get their feet under them. To theseevery day came Hardy with his rawhide _reata_. Those that he could notscare up he pulled up; if any had died he dragged the bodies away fromthe water; and as soon as the recent arrivals had drunk he turned themaway, starting them on their long journey to the high ridges where thesheep had not taken the browse.
Ah, those sheep! How many times in the fever of heat and work andweariness had Hardy cursed them, his tongue seeking unbidden thewickedest words of the range; how many times had he cursed Jim Swope,and Jasper Swope, the Mexicans, and all who had rushed in to helpaccomplish their ruin. And as the sun beat down and no clouds cameinto the sky he cursed himself, blindly, for all that had come topass. One man--only one--at the mouth of Hell's Hip Pocket, and thesheep might have been turned back; but he himself had seen thedust-cloud and let it pass--and for that the cattle died. The sheepwere far away, feeding peacefully in mountain valleys where the pinesroared in the wind and the nights were cool and pleasant; but if therain came and young grass sprang up on Bronco Mesa they would comeagain, and take it in spite of them. Yes, even if the drought wasbroken and the cattle won back their strength, that great army wouldcome down from the north once more and sheep them down to the rocks!But one thing
Hardy promised himself--forgetting that it was thebootless oath of old Bill Johnson, who was crazy now and hiding in thehills--he would kill the first sheep that set foot on Bronco Mesa, andthe next, as long as he could shoot; and Jasp Swope might answer as hewould.
Yet, why think of sheep and schemes of belated vengeance?--the grasswas gone; the browse was cleaned; even the _palo verde_ trees weregrowing scarce. Day by day he must tramp farther and farther along theridge, and all that patient, trusting army behind, waiting for him tofind more trees! Already the weakest were left behind and stood alongthe trails, eying him mournfully; yet work as he would he could notfeed the rest. There was no fine-drawn distinction now--every _paloverde_ on the hillside fell before his axe, whether it was fine-leavedand short-thorned, or rough and spiny; and the cattle ate them all.Mesquite and cat-claw and ironwood, tough as woven wire and barbed atevery joint, these were all that were left except cactus and thearmored _sahuaros_. In desperation he piled brush beneath clumps offuzzy _chollas_, the thorniest cactus that grows, and burned off theresinous spines; but the silky bundles of stickers still lurkedbeneath the ashes, and the cattle that ate them died in agony.
Once more Hardy took his ax and went out in search of _palo verdes_,high or low, young or old. There was a gnarled trunk, curling upagainst a rocky butte and protected by two spiny _sahuaros_ that stoodbefore it like armed guards, and he climbed up the rock to reach it.Chopping away the first _sahuaro_ he paused to watch it fall. As itbroke open like a giant melon on the jagged rocks below, the cattlecrowded about it eagerly, sniffing at the shattered parts--and thenthe hardiest of them began suddenly to eat!
On the outside the wiry spines stood in rows like two-inch knifeblades; but now the juicy heart, laid open by the fall, was exposed,and the cattle munched it greedily. A sudden hope came to Hardy as hewatched them feed, and, climbing higher, he felled two more of thedesert giants, dropping them from their foothold against the butte fardown into the rocky canyon. As they struck and burst, and the sicklyaroma filled the air, the starved cattle, bitten with a new appetite,rushed forward in hordes to eat out their bitter hearts. At last, whenthe battle had seemed all but over, he had found a new food,--one thateven Pablo Moreno had overlooked,--each plant a ton of bitter pulp andjuice. The coarse and wiry spines, whose edges would turn an axe, wereconquered in a moment by the fall from the precipitous cliffs. And themesa was covered with them, like a forest of towering pin-cushions, asfar as the eye could see! A great gladness came over Hardy as he sawthe starved cattle eat, and as soon as he had felled a score or morehe galloped up to Carrizo to tell the news to Jeff.
The mesa was deserted of every living creature. There was not a snaketrack in the dust or a raven in the sky, but as he topped the brow ofthe hill and looked down into the canyon, Hardy saw a great herd ofcattle, and Creede in the midst of them still hacking away at thethorny _palo verdes_. At the clatter of hoofs, the big man looked upfrom his work, wiping the sweat and grime from his brow, and his facewas hard and drawn from working beyond his strength.
"Hello!" he called. "How's things down your way--water holdin' out?Well, you're in luck, then; I've had to dig the spring out twice, andyou can see how many cows I'm feedin'. But say," he continued, "d'yethink it's as hot as this down in hell? Well, if I thought for aminute it'd be as dry I'd take a big drink and join the church, youcan bet money on that. What's the matter--have you got enough?"
"I've got enough of cutting _palo verdes_," replied Hardy, "but youjust lend me that axe for a minute and I'll show you something." Hestepped to the nearest _sahuaro_ and with a few strokes felled it downthe hill, and when Creede saw how the cattle crowded around the brokentrunk he threw down his hat and swore.
"Well--damn--me," he said, "for a pin-head! Here I've been cuttin'these ornery _palo verdes_ until my hands are like a Gila monster'sback, and now look at them cows eat giant cactus! There's no usetalkin', Rufe, the feller that wears the number five hat and thenumber forty jumper ain't worth hell-room when you're around--here,gimme that axe!" He seized it in his thorn-scarred hands and whirledinto the surrounding giants like a fury; then when he had a dozen fat_sahuaros_ laid open among the rocks he came back and sat down pantingin the scanty shade of an ironwood.
"I'm sore on myself," he said. "But that's the way it is! If I'd hadthe brains of a rabbit I'd've stopped Jasp Swope last Spring--then Iwouldn't need to be cuttin' brush here all Summer like a Mexicanwood-chopper. That's where we fell down--lettin' them sheep in--andnow we've got to sweat for it. But lemme tell you, boy," he cried,raising a mighty fist, "if I can keep jest one cow alive until FallI'm goin' to meet Mr. Swope on the edge of my range and shoot 'im fullof holes! Nothin' else will do, somebody has got to be _killed_ beforethis monkey business will stop! I've been makin' faces and skinnin' myteeth at that dastard long enough now, and I'm goin' to make him fightif I have to put high-life on 'im!"
He stopped and looked out over the hillside where the heat quivered inrainbows from the rocks, and the naked _palo verdes_, stripped oftheir bark, bleached like skeletons beside their jagged stumps.
"Say, Rufe," he began, abruptly, "I'm goin' crazy."
He shook his head slowly and sighed. "I always thought I was," hecontinued, "but old Bill Johnson blew in on me the other day--he'scrazy, you know--and when I see him I knowed it! W'y, pardner, Bill isthe most _reas-on-able_ son-of-a-gun you can imagine. You can talkto him by the hour, and outside of bein' a little techy he's allright; but the minute you mention _sheep_ to him his eye turns glassyand he's off. Well, that's me, too, and has been for years, onlynot quite so bad; but then, Bill is plumb sheeped out and Iain't--quite!"
He laughed mirthlessly and filled a cigarette.
"You know," he said, squinting his eyes down shrewdly, "that oldfeller ain't so durned crazy yet. He wanted some ammunition to shootup sheep-camps with, but bein' a little touched, as you might say, hethought I might hold out on 'im, so he goes at me like this: 'Jeff,'he says, 'I've took to huntin' lions for the bounty now--me and thehounds--and I want to git some thirty-thirtys.' But after I'd give himall I could spare he goes on to explain how the sheep, not satisfiedwith eatin' 'im out of house and home, had gone and tolled all thelions away after 'em--so, of course, he'll have to foller along, too.You catch that, I reckon."
Creede drooped his eyes significantly and smoked.
"If it hadn't been for old Bill Johnson," he said, "we wouldn't have alive cow on our range to-day, we'd've been sheeped down that close.When he'd got his ammunition and all the bacon and coffee I couldspare he sat down and told me how he worked it to move all them sheeplast Spring. After he'd made his first big play and see he couldn'tsave the Pocket he went after them sheepmen systematically for hisrevenge. That thirty-thirty of his will shoot nigh onto two miles ifyou hold it right, and every time he sees a sheep-camp smoke heInjuned up onto some high peak and took pot-shots at it. At thedistance he was you couldn't hear the report--and, of course, youcouldn't _see_ smokeless powder. He says the way them Mexican herderstook to the rocks was a caution; and when the fireworks was over theydidn't wait for orders, jest rounded up their sheep and hiked!
"And I tell you, pardner," said the big cowman impressively, "afterthinkin' this matter over in the hot sun I've jest about decided to gocrazy myself. Yes, sir, the next time I hear a sheep-blat on BroncoMesa I'm goin' to tear my shirt gittin' to the high ground with athirty-thirty; and if any one should inquire you can tell 'em thatyour pore friend's mind was deranged by cuttin' too many _paloverdes_." He smiled, but there was a sinister glint in his eyes; andas he rode home that night Hardy saw in the half-jesting words aportent of the never-ending struggle that would spring up if God eversent the rain.
On the day after the visit to Carrizo a change came over the sky; ahaze that softened the edges of the hills rose up along the horizon,and the dry wind died away. As Hardy climbed along the rocky bluffsfelling the giant _sahuaros_ down into the ravines for his cattle, thesweat poured from his face in a stream. A sultry heaviness hung overthe land
, and at night as he lay beneath the _ramada_ he saw thelightning, hundreds of miles away, twinkling and playing along thenorthern horizon. It was a sign--the promise of summer rain!
In the morning a soft wind came stealing in from the west; a whitecloud came up out of nothing and hovered against the breast of thePeaks; and the summer heat grew terrible. At noon the cloud turnedblack and mounted up, its fluffy summit gleaming in the light of theardent sun; the wind whirled across the barren mesa, sweeping greatclouds of dust before it, and the air grew damp and cool; then, asevening came on the clouds vanished suddenly and the wind died down toa calm. For a week the spectacle was repeated--then, at last, as ifweary, the storm-wind refused to blow; the thunder-caps no longerpiled up against the Peaks; only the haze endured, and the silent,suffocating heat.
Day after day dragged by, and without thought or hope Hardy ploddedon, felling _sahuaros_ into the canyons, his brain whirling in thefever of the great heat. Then one day as the sun rose higher agigantic mass of thunder-clouds leapt up in the north, covering halfthe sky. The next morning they rose again, brilliant, metallic,radiating heat like a cone of fire. The heavens were crowned withsudden splendor, the gorgeous pageantry of summer clouds that riserank upon rank, basking like newborn cherubim in the glorious lightof the sun, climbing higher and higher until they reached the zenith.
A moist breeze sprang up and rushed into the storm's black heart,feeding it with vapors from the Gulf; then in the south, the home ofthe rain, another great cloud arose, piling in fluffy billows againstthe grim cliffs of the Superstitions and riding against the flyingcohorts that reared their snowy heads in the north. The wind fell andall nature lay hushed and expectant, waiting for the rain. The cattlewould not feed; the bearded ravens sat voiceless against the cliffs;the gaunt trees and shrubs seemed to hold up their arms--for the rainthat did not come. For after all its pomp and mummery, its blackmantle that covered all the sky and the bravery of its trailingskirts, the Storm, that rode in upon the wind like a king, slunk awayat last like a beaten craven. Its black front melted suddenly, and itsdraggled banners, trailing across the western sky, vanished utterly inthe kindling fires of sunset.
As he lay beneath the starlit sky that night, Hardy saw a vision ofthe end, as it would come. He saw the canyons stripped clean of theirhigh-standing _sahuaros_, the spring at Carrizo dry, the riverstinking with the bodies of the dead--even Hidden Water quenched atlast by the drought. Then a heavy sleep came upon him as he laysprawling in the pitiless heat and he dreamed--dreamed of gaunt steersand lowing cows, and skeletons, strewn along the washes; of labor,never ending, and sweat, dripping from his face. He woke suddenly withthe horror still upon him and gazed up at the sky, searching vainlyfor the stars. The night was close and black, there was a stir amongthe dead leaves as if a snake writhed past, and the wind breathedmysteriously through the bare trees; then a confused drumming came tohis ears, something warm and wet splashed against his face, and intohis outstretched hand God sent a drop of rain.