sure.

The night grew old and still they talked, their fatigue forgotten.
They heard the tale of Marshall's discovery and how it flew right and
left through the spacious, idle land. There were few to answer the
call, ranches scattered wide over the unpeopled valleys, small traders
in the little towns along the coast. In the settlement of Yerba Buena,
fringing the edge of San Francisco Bay, men were leaving their goods at
their shop doors and going inland. Ships were lying idle in the tide
water, every sailor gone to find the golden river. The fair-haired man
laughed and told how he'd swam naked in the darkness, his money in his
mouth, and crawled up the long, shoal shore, waist high in mud.

The small hours had come when one by one they dropped to sleep as they
lay. A twist of the blanket, a squirming into deeper comfort, and rest
was on them. They sprawled in the caked dust like dead men fallen in
battle and left as they had dropped. Even the girl forgot the habits
of a life-long observance and sunk to sleep among them, her head on a
saddle, the old servant curled at her feet.

CHAPTER III

In the even dawn light the strangers left. It was hail and farewell in
desert meetings. They trotted off into the ghostlike stillness of the
plain which for a space threw back their hoof beats, and then closed
round them. The departure of the westward band was not so prompt.
With unbound packs and unharnessed animals, they stood, a dismayed
group, gathered round a center of disturbance. David was ill. The
exertions of the day before had drained his last reserve of strength.
He could hardly stand, complained of pain, and a fever painted his
drawn face with a dry flush. Under their concerned looks, he climbed
on his horse, swayed there weakly, then slid off and dropped on the
ground.

"I'm too sick to go on," he said in the final collapse of misery. "You
can leave me here to die."

He lay flat, looking up at the sky, his long hair raying like a
mourning halo from the outline of his skull, his arms outspread as if
his soul had submitted to its crucifixion and his body was in
agreement. That he was ill was beyond question. The men had their
suspicions that he, like the horses, had drunk of the alkaline spring.

Susan was for remaining where they were till he recovered, the others
wanted to go on. He gave no ear to their debate, interrupting it once
to announce his intention of dying where he lay. This cal