est for him to realize the worst. I
gripped his hand tighter as I said:

"Nothing so pleasant, Harry. Because we're going to starve to death."

"Starve to death?" he exclaimed. Then he added simply, with an oddly
pathetic tone: "I hadn't thought of that."

After that we lay silent for many minutes in that awful darkness.
Thoughts and memories came and went in my brain with incredible
swiftness; pictures long forgotten presented themselves; an endless,
jumbled panorama. They say that a drowning man reviews his past life
in the space of a few seconds; it took me a little more time, but the
job was certainly a thorough one. Nor did I find it more interesting
in retrospect than it had been in reality.

I closed my eyes to escape the darkness. It was maddening; easy enough
then to comprehend the hysterics of the blind and sympathize with them.
It finally reached a point where I was forced to grit my teeth to keep
from breaking out into curses; I could lie still no longer, exhausted
as I was, and Harry, too. I turned on him:

"Come on, Hal; let's move."

"Where?" he asked in a tone devoid of hope.

"Anywhere--away from this beastly water. We must dry out our clothing;
no use dying like drowned rats. If I only had a match!"

We rose to our hands and knees and crawled painfully up the slippery
incline. Soon we had reached dry ground and stood upright; then,
struck by a sudden thought, I turned to Harry:

"Didn't you drink any of that water?"

He answered: "No."

"Well, let's try it. It may be our last drink, Hal; make it a good
one."

We crept back down to the edge of the lake (I call it that in my
ignorance of its real nature), and, settling myself as firmly as
possible, I held Harry's hand while he lowered himself carefully into
the water. He was unable to reach its surface with his mouth without
letting go of my hand, and I shook off my poncho and used it as a line.

"How does it taste?" I asked.

"Fine!" was the response. "It must be clear as a bell. Lord. I
didn't know I was so thirsty!"

I was not ignorant of the fact that there was an excellent chance of
the water being unhealthful, possibly poisoned, what with the tertiary
deposits of copper ores in the rock-basins; but the thought awakened
hope rather than fear. There is a choice even in death.

But when I had pulled Harry up and descended myself I soon found that
there was no danger--or chance. The water had a touch of alkali, but