Page:Old ninety-nine's cave.djvu/195

 an array of bayonets and the heavy odor of the night-blooming cereus was wafted to him on the cool breezes. Soon the sun showed its yellow face on the distant horizon, shedding a warm glow over the prairie already brilliant with flowers whose names he knew not. The stage road wound like a ribbon over the plain which rose and fell "like billows on a pulseless ocean."

Climbing down, Jack returned to the road and tramped on westward. Oh, for a drink of water; but nowhere was any to be found! One sink-hole after another was explored, only to find baked clay instead of the precious fluid. His throat grew parched as he tramped along under the burning sun, and each hour seemingly left him no farther on. All day long he plodded with no water and nothing but berries to eat.

By nightfall, away to the right and off the road, he espied a column of smoke rising. "A human habitation of some sort," he thought, and with added courage pushed on.

Distances are very deceptive in this dry,