the most wrong-minded of
ordinary men talks; there was a sodden, triumphant deviltry in him that
was appalling. He cursed the country for its lack of opportunity of a
certain kind; he was like a hound held in leash, gloating over what he
would do when he got back to the kennels of civilization again. And all
the while, at the back of my mind, was a picture of that white-and-gold
woman of his, way back toward the south, waiting his return because she
owed him her life for the brilliant career she had ruined. It made you
sometimes almost want to laugh--insanely. I used to lie awake at night
and pray whatever there was to kill him, and do it quickly. I would have
turned back, but I felt that every day I could keep him away from Los
Pinos was a day gained for Mrs. Whitney. He was a dangerous maniac, too.
The first day he behaved himself fairly well, but the second, after
supper, when we had cleaned up, he began to fumble through the packs,
and finally produced a bottle of brandy.

"'Fine camping stuff!' he announced. 'Lots of results for very little
weight. Have some?'

"'Are you going to drink that?' I asked.

"'Oh, go to the devil!' he snapped. 'I've been out as much as you have.'
I didn't argue with him further; I hoped if he drank enough the sun
would get him. But the third night he upset the water-kegs, two of
them. He had been carrying on some sort of weird celebration by himself,
and finally staggered out into the desert, singing at the top of his
lungs, and the first thing I knew he was down among the kegs, rolling
over and over, and kicking right and left. The one that was open was
gone; another he kicked the plug out of, but I managed to save about
a quarter of its contents. The next morning I spoke to him about it.
He blinked his red eyes and chuckled.

"'Poor sort of stuff, anyway,' he said.

"'Yes,' I agreed; 'but without it you would blow out like a candle in
a dust storm.' After that we didn't speak to each other except when it
was necessary.

"We were in the foot-hills of the Voodoos by now, and the next day we
got into the mountains themselves--great, bare ragged peaks, black and
red and dirty yellow, like the cooled-off slake of a furnace. Every
now and then a dry gully came down from nowheres; and the only human
thing one could see was occasionally, on the sides of one of these,
a shivering, miserable, half-dead pinon--nothing but that, and the
steel-blue sky overhead, and the desert behind us, shi