gth
was going on him in spite of himself. He knew it, all right, for when
we rested that day he took all the gold coins and spread them in a row,
and counted them, and put them back in his pocket, and then all of a
sudden snatched out two handfuls and threw them as far as he could.

"Too heavy," he muttered, but that was all he could bring himself to
throw away.

All that night we wandered high in the air. I guess we tried to keep a
general direction, but I don't know. Anyway, along late, but before
moonrise--she was now on the wane--I came to, and found myself looking
over the edge of a twenty-foot drop. Right below me I made out a faint
glimmer of white earth in the starlight. Somehow it reminded me of a
little trail I used to know under a big rock back in Texas.

"Here's a trail," I thought, more than half loco; "I'll follow it!"

At least that's what half of me thought. The other half was sensible,
and knew better, but it seemed to be kind of standing to one side, a
little scornful, watching the performance. So I slid and slipped down
to the strip of white earth, and, sure enough, it was a trail. At that
the loco half of me gave the sensible part the laugh. I followed the
path twenty feet and came to a dark hollow under the rock, and in it a
round pool of water about a foot across. They say a man kills himself
drinking too much, after starving for water. That may be, but it
didn't kill me, and I sucked up all I could hold. Perhaps the fishhook
cactus had helped. Well, sir, it was surprising how that drink brought
me around. A minute before I'd been on the edge of going plumb loco,
and here I was as clear-headed as a lawyer.

I hunted up Denton and Schwartz. They drank, themselves full, too.
Then we rested. It was mighty hard to leave that spring--

Oh, we had to do it. We'd have starved sure, there. The trail was a
game trail, but that did us no good, for we had no weapons.

How we did wish for the coffeepot, so we could take some away. We
filled our hats, and carried them about three hours, before the water
began to soak through. Then we had to drink it in order to save it.

The country fairly stood up on end. We had to climb separate little
hills so as to avoid rolling rocks down on each other. It took it out
of us. About this time we began to see mountain sheep. They would
come right up to the edges of the small cliffs to look at us. We threw
stones at them, hoping to hit one in