tant.

Onward they pushed with renewed energy and hope. At last they reached
the place, and found that the hole was dry!

With consternation depicted on their haggard countenances the men looked
at the guide.

"Dig, men, dig," he said, with a troubled look on his bronzed face,
"there may be a little below the surface."

They did dig with shovels, spades, knives, sticks, hands, anything, and
they dug as never men did for gold. All the gold in California would
they have given at that time for a cupful of cold water, but all the
gold in the world could not have purchased one drop from the parched
sand. Never was despair more awfully pictured on men's faces as they
gazed at one another after finding that their efforts were unavailing.
Their case was truly pitiable, and they turned to the guide as if they
expected commiseration; but the case had become too desperate for him to
think of others. In a stern, hard voice he cried--

"Onwards, men! onwards! The nearest stream is forty miles off. None of
those who have water can spare a drop, and death lies in delay. Every
man for himself now. Onward, men, for your lives!"

Saying this he applied the whip to the poor mules, which, with glazed
eyes and hanging ears, snorted with agony, and dropped down frequently
as they went along, but a sharp thrust of the goad forced them to rise
again and stumble forward.

"God help the poor wretches," murmured Joe Graddy to Frank as they
staggered along side by side. "Is our supply nearly out--could we not
give them a drop?"

Frank stopped suddenly, and, with desperate energy, seized the keg which
hung over his shoulder, and shook it close to the ear of his companion.

"Listen," he said, "can we afford to spare any with forty miles of the
desert before us? It is our life! we must guard it."

Graddy shook his head, and, admitting that the thing was out of the
question, went silently forward. It was all that Frank himself could do
to refrain from drinking the little that remained, for his very vitals
seemed on fire. Indeed, in this respect, he suffered more than some of
his companions, for while those of them who had not charge of the
water-kegs and bottles experienced the pain of suffering and hopeless
longing, he himself had the additional misery of having to resist
temptation, for at any moment he could have obtained temporary relief by
gratifying his desires at the expense of his companions.

Overpowered with heat, an