stance to encourage them. He
would remark upon the favorable signs of water in the hills before them,
and the hope that there might be some game to provide better meat than
that of starving oxen. Thus he renewed their hope and kept alive their
courage. He must have had a great deal of fortitude to hide his own sad
feelings, for they must as surely have come to him as to any one, and to
keep up always an air of hope, courage, and determination to succeed. If
he had been a man of less spirit and good judgment it is very probable
that many more would have been left by the wayside to die.

About this point the trail which had been growing fainter and fainter,
seemed to vanish entirely. One could move in almost any direction to
right or left as he chose, and because of this, previous travel had
doubtless scattered and thus left no trail. It was thought best that
this company should spread out and approach the mountains in as broad a
front as possible so as to multiply the chances of finding water, and so
they started out in pairs, some to the right and some to the left, each
selecting the point where water seemed most probable.

Tom Shannon and a companion were one of these pairs. Tom was one of the
few who still stuck to his gun, for he felt that it might save his life
sometime. He and his companion separated about a mile, each looking at
all points that showed the least sign of water. Suddenly a jack rabbit
started from a bush, the first game Shannon had seen for more than a
month. He pulled the rifle on him as he was making some big bound and
had the good luck to nearly split his head open. Rushing up to his game
he put his mouth to the wound and sucked the warm blood as it flowed,
for it was the first liquid he had seen; but instead of allaying his
fearful thirst it seemed to make it worse and he seemed delirious. A
little way up the gulch he saw a rock and a green bush and steered for
it, but found no water. He sat down with his back to the rock, his rifle
leaning up near by, pulled his old worn hat over his eyes, and suffered
an agony of sickness. He realized that life was leaving his body, and
there he sat with no power to move and no desire to make an effort. It
seemed as if he could see plain before him all the trail from where he
sat, back over all the deserts, mountains and rivers to the old place in
Illinois. He entirely forgot the present, and seemed unconscious of
everything but the pictures of the past. The mi