Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/157

Rh were not fit for food. And, as the hours went by, with the sun sapping their strength, drying drop by drop, first the superfluous, then the essential liquids from their bodies, all questions resolved themselves into the two problems of sanity and progress. Down in the Basin they had at least plenty to eat, distasteful though food had been at times. Here they had but a handful of flour, an ounce or two of bacon, saved from their last two meals that had themselves been far from ample. They had gone through the fatigue of the fight, the suspense, the facing of apparently inevitable death, and the mental strain had left them physically weaker. They were engines with little oil—which was water—and less fuel—which was food—travelling a trackless waste toward an uncertain destination.

While their strength lasted they pushed on. Once or twice they essayed to rest, but there was no shadow save that which they themselves cast, and the heat seemed twice as powerful and irritating. At noon they looked across the rounded top of Promontory Peak and the gash of Tonto Fork to the chalcedony plateau over which they had struggled three days before. Across this tableland Harvey pointed out some specks that he declared were moving, though they looked no larger than ants. Stone was apathetic to Harvey's speculations on who might be trailing toward Tonto. His lids were gummy and his eyeballs smarting and he could not make out the dots with any satisfaction as to their identity with men or pack-animals. Larkin's eyesight was no better.