Page:Taylor - In the Dwellings of the Wilderness.djvu/158

 thrown me. It … it was a body, Merritt, a dried husk that sounded hollow when I struck it. I don't know whose. It might have been the boy's. They do dry up so fast, out in this sun, you know … It was a shock, an awful one. I don't know what I did. I was so set, heart and soul, on keeping a straight course, that I scarcely dared turn my face aside or stop moving … I felt for it, to see if I could tell anything by the clothes, but it slipped out of my hands and—and I could not find it again. I groped for it, but dared not move far to either side, lest I get turned around. It may have been lying within a foot of me, and I missed it. So I said—'God have mercy on your soul, whoever you were!' and went on, and left it lying there. But if