anger into an obsession to kill, for Wunpost himself was
beginning to feel the desert madness and he set out deliberately to lure
him.

Where the black and frowning ramparts of Tucki Mountain thrust out
towards the edge of the Sink a spring of stinking water rises up from
the ground and runs off into the marsh. From the peaks above, it is a
bright strip of green at which the wary mountain sheep gaze longingly;
but down in that rank grass there are bones and curling horns that have
taught the survivors to beware. It is Poison Spring, _the_ Poison
Spring in a land where all water is bad; and in many a long day Wunpost
was the only human being who had gazed into its crystal depths. For the
water was clear, too clear to be good, without even a green scum along
its edge; and the rank, deceiving grass which grew up below could not
tempt him to more than taste it. But, being trailed at the time by some
men from Nevada who had seen the Sockdolager ore, he had conceived a
possible use for the spring; and, coming back later, he had buried two
cans of good water where he could find them when occasion demanded. This
was the trap, in fact, toward which for four days he had been leading
his vindictive pursuers; it was poisoned bait, laid out by Nature
herself, to strike down such coyotes as Lynch.

Wunpost arrived at Poison Spring well along in the evening, the desert
night being almost turned to day by the splendor of a waning moon. He
rode in across the flat and down the salt-encrusted bank, still
sweltering in the smothering heat; and the pounding blood in his brain
had brought on a kind of fury--a death-anger at Pisen-face Lynch. He dug
into the sand and drew out the cans of water, holding his mules away
from the spring; and then, from a bucket, he gave each a small drink
after taking a large one himself. There were two five-gallon cans, and
after he had finished he lashed the full one on the pack; the other one,
which sloshed faintly if one shook it up and down, he tossed mockingly
down by the spring. And then he rode on, wiping the sweat from his brow
and gazing back grimly into the night.

CHAPTER XV

WUNPOST TAKES THEM ALL ON

The morning found Wunpost at Salt Creek Crossing, where the bones of a
hundred emigrants lie buried in the sand without even a cross to mark
their resting place. It was a place well calculated to bring up thoughts
of death, but Wunpost faced the coming day calmly. At the first flush of
da