Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/176

158 followed them, like a dog that craves company. Sheridan halted.

"She must go back," he said. "She'll find her way home easy enough. If she comes she'll have to share our water."

"If we git any. But she saw the roan shot an' she's scared. You can't shoo her home. Better let her follow. We may need her after all, if she is lame."

And the three trailed on, following the sun that seemed simultaneously to beckon and threaten, on to where even the cactus began to fail and the mesa turned to a desert where nothing grew. Once they turned aside to the foot of the range and Jackson found his spring, a brackish puddle with which they filled canteen and flask and slaked their thirst.

The sun set back of Pyramid Hills, still far away and the swift change of temperature found them shivering. They had had no food save a few prickly pears they had peeled, some lumps of cactus they had skinned and chewed. In the fever of pursuit they had forgotten provisions. The sun and sand had taken heavy toll. The lame mare was now the best of the three. Three hours later the moon came up, blanching all the plain. Their water was gone. They did not miss it so much in the coolness but their tongues were soon swollen and they were tired to stumbling, caked with the desert.

They plodded up and down a draw. They no longer chose a path but kept straight on towards Pyramid Hills and a low mound that was slowly rising in mid distance, the Painted Rocks, the City of Silence. On the ridge Jackson went to his hands