The Long Chance

the tangled thread of the events of the night. Eventually he succeeded in driving his faculties into line. He rolled over, got to his hands and knees and paused a minute

ing off the rotten dead limbs which, lie close to the base of the shrub. Three piles of sage he gathered,

ht across the desert he ran, with the long tireless stride that was the heritage of his people. His large heavy shoes retarded him; he removed them, tucked them under his arm and with a lofty disdain of tarantulas and side-winders fled barefooted. Three-quarters of an hour from the time he had first see

ith his assailant, and shrewdly surmised that he would head for the Colorado river, after having firs

g. I'll keep one canteen and you can take the other; I have matches and my six-shooter, and I can live on quail and chuckwallas until I get to the river. You have your knife. Track that man

the Desert Rat on his back. While the man was quite conscious, he was still

canteen, took a long drink from the Tank, grunted an "Adios, senor," and departed up

ou have one virtue that most white men lack-you'll stay put and be faithful to your salt. And now, just

to, he crawled into the meager shade of a palo verde tree and fell asleep. When he awoke an hour

jacks will stampede on him and he'll pay his bill to society-with interest. When the wind dies down the pack outfit will drift back to this water-hole, and when Old Reliable finds out that the trail is los

canteen over his shoulder and he was bareheaded. His head ached and throbbed, his tongue and throat felt dry and c

tood. He had been delirious. With the fever from his wound and the thought of the fortune of which he had been despoiled, uppermost even in his subconscious brain, he had left Chuckwalla Tanks and started in pursuit. How far

nst the sky-and he fumbled in his pocket for matches. There were none; and with a sigh, that was almost a sob

to the mouth of a long black canyon between two ranges of black hil

early tomorrow morning I'll go up that canyo

ead on his arm, and, God being merciful and

of the desert night. Slowly he approached the mouth of the can

fresh trail of two burros and a man. The trail of the man was not well

red the lost Desert Rat. "I'll bet it's little Boston, after all

t added impetus to the passage of the Desert Rat up the lonely canyon. The thought lent new strength to the ma

t that, for the canyon ended in a sheer cliff that towered two hundred feet above h

iven to understand much that to the layman savored of the occult; at birth, God had been very good to him, in that He had ordained that during all his life the Desert Rat should be engaged in learning how to die, and

with murder in my heart, stultifying my manhood with the excuse that it would be justice in the abstract, and the Lord shows me an example of the vanity and

ive, for the vulgar and the common would never perish here. In all the centuries since its formation no human feet, save his own and those of the man whose skeleton lay before him, had ever awakened the echoes in its silent halls. Pioneers, dreamers both

se at dawn; to him the darkest night was but the forerunner of another day of glorious battle, when he could rise out of the sage,

orn baby! You'll hope, through the long years, w

ht have been ten years old; perhaps, in the years to come, some other wanderer would see his tracks, halting, staggering, uncertain, blazing the ancient call of the desert

t for himself. He had many things to think of, he had much of happines

raps the drape

lies down to

ed life that lay before him now with arms outstretched. The Desert Rat stare

orbear a joke. "To be delivered when called for" he added. "This other man might have done

n which he had written his will and the record of his betrayal. He added th

I will be found was n

me by several years

might be

y canteen and screwed the cap on tight; after which he cast about for

st of the lava had run out, but a thin crust, averaging in thickness from a quarter to three quarters of an inch, still remained. Originally, this thin lava had been a creamy white, but with the passage of centuries the sun had baked it to a dirty brown and the lava had become disintegrated and rotten. As the hot lava had hardened and dried it had cracked, after the fashion of a lake bed when the

of these sections of lava. Where it had been exposed to the sun on

e a paradox, there had been no mystery at first-at least to the Desert Ra

nd of colors on the whole forming a slate-colored patch with creamy edges, marking the boundaries of the footprints; and here, in this horrible canyon, where rains would never erode nor winds oblite

ould have interested him greatly. But he had his message to leave to his loved ones, and time pressed. In the joy and pri

ce after piece of the natural mosaic, inverted it and laid it back in its appointed place. At the end of two hours h

canteen and see t

faded; as for the coming of the messen

d he might obliterate his message. With his fading gaze fixed on the mouth of the c

he Night