t a mouthful of brandy past
the clinched teeth. The breath came fast and faint like the heart
beats. Once, the eyes opened; but they were glazed and unseeing.
Wayland laid the old head on the pillowed pack trees, fitting rest for
frontiersman of the wilderness; then he stood up to think! A terrible
passion of tenderness, of question, of defiance to God, rushed through
his thoughts. The animals take their tragedies dumb and uncomplaining.
Man alone has not learned the futility of shouting impotent reproaches
at a brazen sky.

The Ranger unsaddled the pony. Then he tethered the mule and broncho
by separate ropes to the boulders. He placed the brandy flask by the
old man's right hand. He thought a moment. Then he laid the loaded
rifle close to the same hand.

The eyes were still staring wide open unseeing. The purple lips began
babbling wordless words, words of the sea, words that ran into one
another inarticulate. Wayland stooped and took the left hand in his
own palm. It was cold and heavy, a thing detached from life; and the
purple swollen lips were still babbling in inarticulate whispers.
Should he leave him to die there alone; or go forth to seek; seek what?

The Ranger stooped and pressed his lips to the blood-blotched back of
the faithful shrivelled old hand. He did not shed a tear. We weep
only when we are half hurt.

Wayland seized the Service axe and uncased his own rifle. Then in
words that were not worshipful, not bending his knees, but standing
with his hat off, he uttered what may have been a prayer, or may have
been blasphemy. I leave you to judge: "By God, if there is a God, why
doesn't He waken up? If there is a God, does _He_ stand for right? Is
there such a thing as Right; or is Right the dream of fools? I want to
know! If there is a God, I want God to speak out clear and plain,
right now, in plain facts, so I can understand, and not so blamed long
ago that a plain fellow can't make out what's the right thing to do."

It was one thing to pray under the rose-colored windows of a college
chapel, and another thing to pray under the yellow, brazen Desert sky.
There was only the dreadful Desert silence, with the rattle from the
laboured breathing of the unconscious man. If there was no God, then
the fight for Right was the futility of fools: Right was only the Right
of the strong to prey upon the weak, till the weak became in turn
strong enough to prey; and that meant anarchy. If