stopped my murmuring. And the next thing I can call to mind must have
happened a long time afterward.

Beyond all doubt, in this desolation, my father gave his life for mine.
I did not know it at the time, nor had the faintest dream of it, being
so young and weary-worn, and obeying him by instinct. It is a fearful
thing to think of--now that I can think of it--but to save my own little
worthless life I must have drained every drop of water from his flat
half-gallon jar. The water was hot and the cork-hole sandy, and I
grumbled even while drinking it; and what must my father (who was dying
all the while for a drop, but never took one)--what must he have thought
of me?

But he never said a word, so far as I remember; and that makes it all
the worse for me. We had strayed away into a dry, volcanic district of
the mountains, where all the snow-rivers run out quite early; and of
natural springs there was none forth-coming. All we had to guide us was
a little traveler's compass (whose needle stuck fast on the pivot with
sand) and the glaring sun, when he came to sight behind the hot, dry,
driving clouds. The clouds were very low, and flying almost in our
faces, like vultures sweeping down on us. To me they seemed to shriek
over our heads at the others rushing after them. But my father said that
they could make no sound, and I never contradicted him.

CHAPTER II

A PACIFIC SUNSET

At last we came to a place from which the great spread of the earth
was visible. For a time--I can not tell how long--we had wholly lost
ourselves, going up and down, and turning corners, without getting
further. But my father said that we must come right, if we made up our
minds to go long enough. We had been in among all shapes, and want of
shapes, of dreariness, through and in and out of every thrup and thrum
of weariness, scarcely hoping ever more to find our way out and discover
memory of men for us, when all of a sudden we saw a grand sight. The
day had been dreadfully hot and baffling, with sudden swirls of red dust
arising, and driving the great drought into us. To walk had been worse
than to drag one's way through a stubbly bed of sting-nettles. But now
the quick sting of the sun was gone, and his power descending in the
balance toward the flat places of the land and sea. And suddenly we
looked forth upon an immeasurable spread of these.

We stood at the gate of the sandy range, which here, like a vast brown
patch, disfigures t