Sure enough, the men were left without supplies, water or food.

Not a thing had been unpacked. I loved the Professor, for he had many times made sacrifices for me, and the thought made me stop and look back. The men were talking and gesticulating excitedly.

Presently one started up the trail, and the other down, and were soon lost to view. They had set out on the wrong scent. With some misgivings I hastened to catch up with my comrades.

CHAPTER LII.

BY PYE POD.

Then, looking down at the great dog, he cried, with a kind of daft glee:

"_Up an' waur them a', Quharrie_, Up an' waur them a', man; There's no a Dutchman i' the pack That's ony guid ava, man--Hooch!"

--_The Raiders._

Never before was I in such a desperate plight, nor was I ever more frightened than now. I knew not where, but believed we were in the De Satoyta Mountains, possibly on the trail to pa.s.s between Indian Peak and Mt. Atry. We had kindled a fire, warmed our hands, and were about to unpack when c.o.o.nskin exclaimed, "For G.o.d's sake!

Pod, the donks are gone!"

Often had I exercised the importance of c.o.o.nskin's picketing the beasts before leaving them, but now was no time to scold. I directed him to take matches and examine the ascending trail, while I retraced our steps and did likewise. Luckily our revolvers were in our belts, and it was agreed that the first to discover traces of the deserters should shoot until hearing a shot in answer. Don went with c.o.o.nskin. The lighted lantern was left by the unreliable fire.

It was difficult in the wind to keep a match lighted long enough to be of value, even when protecting it with my hat, as I knelt on the hard trail or on the softer earth in the sage, and strained my eyes to detect the shoe prints of my runaways. Every few steps I stopped to listen for a signal shot, and deplored our dire predicament without food or water.

I had about concluded that the only resort left us was an all-night tramp over the pa.s.s, perhaps to be followed by an all-day hunt in the next valley for a habitation and spring, when I heard the welcome signal from c.o.o.nskin. Presently through the still air came the sound of Don's barking, then I knew the fugitives were captured. With a lighter heart I now gathered sage preparatory to cooking, for we had traveled all day without a bite.

Our animals that night were securely roped both to the iron tent-pins and the tent, so that they could not slip away during the night without taking us with them.

When I opened my eyes next morning, Mac stood with his head inside the tent-door, wistfully eyeing the canteen by my pillow. My heart was touched, but I thought, "Self-preservation is the first law,"

and knew that, if turned loose, all five donkeys would have the asinine instinct to find a spring in time to save themselves, whereas a man might fall a hundred feet from a spring and die in ignorance of it.

One hour after sunrise the breakfast dishes had been cleaned with a rag, in the absence of water, and the donkeys were standing to be packed for the disheartening journey. A heap of ashes smothered some fragile hot coals of sage, which, from all appearances, were most inviting to any donkey to roll in. While cinching the pack on c.o.xey, I observed Mac to steal to the ash heap, look at it wistfully a moment, circle round it two or three times, and, kneeling down, flop over on his side, plumb in the middle of the warm, gray ashes, and still warmer coals. It was his custom to roll over several times, but he didn't do so this morning. He didn't roll at all. If he had fallen on a huge rubber ball, he couldn't have bounded on to his feet with more alacrity.

When Mac once had his balance, he shook himself vigorously and brayed, then eyed the ash heap as if it were a nest of rattlesnakes.

The air smelled of singed hair. The donkey reached around and licked his side a moment, then he backed away. When one donkey rolls and his fellows do not follow suit, you can mark it as most significant.

Two hours later my caravan had crossed the summit and were marching down the western slope of the range.

Nevada is the home of the wild horse, and now we saw bunches of these wary creatures grazing in the distance, or running like deer for the hills at the sight of my outfit, although five and more miles away.

It was 2 o'clock when, rounding a bend, my searching eye discerned across the valley, close to the base of the Augusta range, a building or hay-stack. My heart leaped with joy. Our canteens were empty, but ere long we might slake our thirst at a ranch well and give our faithful animals a treat.

On we pressed until, pa.s.sing the stack, we reached a trail leading into the canyon. A few moments more, and I saw a wreath of smoke ascending not far up the pa.s.s. My intuition told me it was the Maestratti ranch. And it was.

We received a hearty welcome. Don, poor thing, was so weak from a prolonged siege of dysentery that he could scarcely creep to the house; but, while c.o.o.nskin and I unpacked and watered the donkeys, my faithful dog was fed scalded bread and milk by our hostess, who ordered a hearty meal for us men.

Mr. Maestratti invited us to a bed in his house, but I declined it, preferring my own blankets; and now, as I strode wearily to it, I called affectionately to my dog. Something told me I was going to lose him, my devoted friend during three thousand miles and many months of travel. I missed the loving pressure of his face against mine, his warm tongue on the back of my hand, his gay antics and playful bark when in his happier moods, and antic.i.p.ated the grief I should soon feel. I paused at the tent door and whistled.

"Don has stolen away to die," said c.o.o.nskin, feelingly. "That's just what dogs do. Let's take the lantern and try and find him."

So saying, the man lighted up, and we began the search.

We found him. He was lying beside a stalk of sage a hundred feet from camp, uncomplaining, weak, and breathing irregularly. The flare of the lantern aroused him, and he turned his bloodshot eyes to mine, as much as to say, "Leave me, kind master, I shall soon be out of misery. Do not mourn."

Then I thought of his identification of the outlaws at Thirty Mile, and of his attack on the cowboy in Nebraska who had playfully la.s.soed me at my request. I remembered the chill nights in Iowa barns when he crept over and nestled against me in the hay that the heat from his great, warm body might keep me comfortable.

I could not restrain my tears. My best friend must not die in the brush alone. We persuaded him to return with us, and made him a comfortable bed in a corner of the tent, patted his head, and retired. But soon the poor fellow stole out into the frosty night.

It was not the rising sun or a donkey's bray that awoke me, but a woman calling, "Breakfast!" I intended first before answering the demands of my stomach, to look at my dead friend's face, but to my surprise and delight I saw the dog lying in the sun, his head up and his tail wagging, very much alive. He had pa.s.sed the crisis of his illness during the night; I had hopes that he would soon be well.

A fortunate circ.u.mstance threw us in the company of a stranger journeying westward in a wagon. Like everybody else, he showed great interest in my travels, and when he saw the condition of my dog, he offered to convey him over the mountains.

We arrived at the summit of the pa.s.s by ten o'clock. There we rested an hour and fed our animals. The journey down the western slope, while apparently as trying to the donkeys as the ascent had been, was more inviting to the convalescing dog, and he on the way surprised us by leaping out of the wagon and making after a jackrabbit.

At two o'clock Don's Good Samaritan drove away to the south, and at four we arrived at the Donaldson Ranch. Many courtesies were extended us here and we were half persuaded to remain over night with these hospitable people. We cooked dinner early, gave our animals a liberal mess of barley, filled our canteens, packed and departed at seven with the well-wishes of all and a fifty-pound bag of grain, which was donated to Mac A'Rony.

Darkness had set in. Although cautioned about two diverging trails which we would reach before ascending the mountain, before an hour had pa.s.sed I realized we were going in the wrong direction. The night was chill and pitch dark. Quickly changing the saddle from Mac to my fleet-footed Skates, I rode back to the ranch. No light shone through the windows of the house, and I knew that every one had retired. I could see no expedient left me other than to arouse somebody to set me straight. Feeling my way to the house, I shouted with all my might, and soon awoke Mr. Donaldson, Jr., who came good-naturedly to my relief, saddled a horse, and insisted on guiding my party to the summit. We did not arrive there until midnight.

The noonday saw me at Horse Creek, and midnight, at Sand Spring, where we camped. At dawn, a sweeping glance from my tent door revealed the most desolate of surroundings. To the west was a great barren desert, while on every hand were ma.s.sive sand dunes, some of them towering a hundred feet.

A breeze had sprung up during the night. After purchasing a peck of pine nuts from some Piute Indians who had camped close by for the night, and were now starting out on the home trail, I tied the door flaps as tightly as possible to keep out the drifting sand, then went back to bed. In spite of my precautions the sand forced an entrance, coated our blankets an inch thick, and scattered seeds of unkindness in our nostrils, ears and hair. When I awoke and saw the sides of the tent bended inward and half way up the walls an uneven horizon, where, through the canvas, the sand and sunshine met, I roused my companion and we dressed. In a few moments more we might have been buried alive.

How we were to cook breakfast was a serious question. On unfastening the door, we were immediately blinded with sand and alkali dust; and it was only with the greatest difficulty that I could find the ruins of the old restaurant of '49, which at early dawn I had discovered only two hundred feet away. The floor of this structure had long since gone to provide camp-fires for many a traveler, but I kicked off a piece of siding. Then I tried to find the tent. I groped and stumbled in the blinding storm, and only by calling to c.o.o.nskin and keeping him constantly answering did I hold to my bearings and succeed in reaching camp.

Saturating a few sticks with coal oil, I got them a-blazing, and then under cover of our water-pail I ventured out of the tent and built a fire sufficient to boil coffee. Our bread when b.u.t.tered looked as if veneered with sand-paper. c.o.o.nskin, gulping down a half cup of coffee, echoed my sentiments when he remarked, "It takes plenty of grit to cross these plains."

How we ever packed and drove our half-crazed animals out of that sandy hurricane is beyond my power to describe. Blinded and choked with the sand themselves, they could scarcely be made to walk to the well. Having washed out their throats, Skates was persuaded to move, and the others followed reluctantly out of range of the warring elements.

As soon as we were clear of the sand belt, we stopped and made our toilet. All day long while crossing that broad desert my eyes smarted and swelled, and they did not cease paining me until we reached the first habitation, where I procured witch-hazel.

Grimes' ranch at seven o'clock saw my whole party in better spirits. I declined both the invitation to remain over night and to stop for supper. Mr. Grimes telephoned to Mr. Len A----n, of Sinclair, advising him that I was on my way there and expected to arrive by nine. It was much after that time, however, when my outfit reached the ranch. When still three miles away and a full hour's march, we could see a lantern swinging, and when we got within a half mile the sound of cheers and calls of welcome greeted our ears. We answered the signals with our lantern and cheered so l.u.s.tily that Mac A'Rony paused to bray and led the donkey quintette in a heartrending chorus.

The day's thirty-mile jaunt thus came to a happy end in marked contrast with its beginning. A stalwart, broad-shouldered man, with a smiling face half hidden by a beard streaked with gray, lifted his sombrero as he grasped my hand and shook it heartily.

"Welcome, welcome, my boy! Now make yourself at home," said Len A----n.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Some Piute Indians who had camped close by._"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Playing Solitaire on Damfino's broad back._"]

CHAPTER LIII.

BY MAC A'RONY.

"A torch for me, let wantons, light of heart, Tickle the useless rushes with their heels; For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase.

I'll be a candle-holder, and look on."

--_Romeo and Juliet._