e he hoisted his companion to the front seat.

At intervals thereafter the lone human figure spoke the single word that
brought his team to an instantaneous dead stop. His first care was then
the woman, next the man clinging to the front seat, then the oxen.
Before starting he clambered to the top of the wagon and cast a long,
calculating look across the desolation ahead. Twice he even further
reduced the meagre contents of the wagon, appraising each article long
and doubtfully before discarding it. About mid-afternoon he said
abruptly:

"Jim, you've got to walk."

The man demurred weakly, with a touch of panic.

"Every ounce counts. It's going to be a close shave. You can hang on to
the tail of the wagon."

Yet an hour later Jim, for the fourth time, fell face downward, but now
did not rise. Gates, going to him, laid his hand on his head, pushed
back one of his eyelids, then knelt for a full half minute, staring
straight ahead. Once he made a tentative motion toward the nearly empty
water keg, once he started to raise the man's shoulders. The movements
were inhibited. A brief agony cracked the mask of alkali on his
countenance. Then stolidly, wearily, he arose. The wagon lurched
forward. After it had gone a hundred yards and was well under way in its
painful forward crawl, Gates, his red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes fixed and
glazed, drew the revolver from its holster and went back.

At sundown he began to use the gad. The oxen were trying to lie down.
If one of them succeeded, it would never again arise. Gates knew this.
He plied the long, heavy whip in both hands. Where the lash fell it bit
out strips of hide. It was characteristic of the man that though
heretofore he had not in all this day inflicted a single blow on the
suffering animals, though his nostrils widened and his terrible red eyes
looked for pity toward the skies, yet now he swung mercilessly with all
his strength.

Dusk fell, but the hot earth still radiated, the powder dust rose and
choked. The desert dragged at their feet; and in the twilight John Gates
thought to hear mutterings and the soft sound of wings overhead as the
dread spirits of the wastes stooped low. He had not stopped for nearly
two hours. This was the last push; he must go straight through or fail.

And when the gleam of the river answered the gleam of the starlight he
had again to rouse his drained energies. By the brake, by directing the
wagon into an obstruction, by voice and whip