de. I was tryin' to find some outfit. When
Billy lagged I beat him on. You see, I was thinking of Sam. After a
while the horse staggered,--stepped into a badger hole, I thought. But
he kept staggerin'. I fell off on one side just as he pitched forward.
He tried and tried to get up. I stayed till he died; then I kept
walking. I don't know what became of Sam; I don't know what became of
me; but I do know I am going to dig wells all over this desert until
every thirsty horse can have water."

All the time he had been eating just pickles; when he finished his
story he ate faster. By now we all knew he was demented. The men tried
to coax him to go on with us so that they could turn him over to the
authorities, but he said he must be digging. At last it was decided to
send some one back for him. Mr. Struble was unwilling to leave him,
but the man would not be persuaded. Suddenly he gathered up his
"smoking" and some food and ran back up the draw. We had to go on, of
course.

All that afternoon our road lay along the buried river. I don't mean
dry river. Sand had blown into the river until the water was buried.
Water was only a few feet down, and the banks were clearly defined.
Sometimes we came to a small, dirty puddle, but it was so alkaline
that nothing could drink it. The story we had heard had saddened us
all, and we were sorry for our horses. Poor little Elizabeth Hull
wept. She said the West was so big and bare, and she was so alone and
so sad, she just _had_ to cry.

About sundown we came to a ranch and were made welcome by one Timothy
Hobbs, owner of the place. The dwelling and the stables were a
collection of low brown houses, made of logs and daubed with mud.
Fields of shocked grain made a very prosperous-looking background. A
belled cow led a bunch of sleek cattle home over the sand dunes. A
well in the yard afforded plenty of clear, cold water, which was
raised by a windmill. The cattle came and drank at the trough, the
bell making a pleasant sound in the twilight.

The men told Mr. Hobbs about the man we saw. "Oh, yes," he said, "that
is Crazy Olaf. He has been that way for twenty years. Spends his time
digging wells, but he never gets any water, and the sand caves in
almost as fast as he can get it out." Then he launched upon a recital
of how he got sweet water by piping past the alkali strata. I kept
hoping he would tell how Olaf was kept and who was responsible for
him, but he never told.

He invited us