The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-02-24

1 f6nth, and according to all preceden and reason the rains should have SC
 in weeks before but they had not. Int
 grass that had sprung up with the frs | early showers had scared and died be-
 fore the net rain came to keel
 it alive. The shallow, sluggish
 little streams of brackish water
 that crawled along the bottom
 of their beds, which the year be
 fore had been swollen beyond then
 banks finally gave out utterly. In every direction the white alkali plains glisten'
 ed away to the meeting line of the sky
 in an infinitude of ieola tion. The oldest inhabitant in all that country could not
 recall winter that equalled this in dry ness.
 | Howbeit, Nevada was then new
 State, and the population migratory 1 Wilson, the new boss of the outfit, had
 hoped to get out of the sagebrush coun- Btry and strike the California line some-
 where above Bode by the end of the 1 first month out, but there was no rain
 no water, and the plains lay in open
 cracks. Day after day the sun arose
 smiled down upon the parched little bunch of men and cattle fourteen long 1 hours as he sailed across the cloudless sky, serenely unconscious of the male dictions hurled against him, while the bare, burning prairie stared back in un- blinking defiance. There were gorgeous | sunsets every evening-moments, when the great fiery ball seemed almost to stand still, to give a long backward glance before dropping out of sight, and
 with a Midas touch turn all the world into molten gold. But to the played out
 COW puncher sunset means nothing but 1 bed -time--bed- time, after hard, parch- ed hopeless day. There were clear, chaste moonlight nights, of wondrous
 radiance, too, but the moon was seen only in the early morning, when they
 rose to another day, more hard, more
 parched, more hopeless. The cattle
 mere anatomical charts by this time
 went staggering about in crazy circles,
 too weak to need watching, the threeA Ks on their Hanks reduced to half the original size by the shrivelling of the h'de or fell heavily to the earth, to rice again, after many seasons of sun and shower, as prairie flowers and salt grass,
 Their believing was reduced to a moan almost human in it's misery, for the one voice common to all created things animal or human, is the voice of Guffering.
 The Miseourian, great, hulking young fellow, was first cf the men tc show signs of weakening. That is the most terrible moment in all like eEperi ences, when the men who have held on grimly and endured together see one of their number losing his grip This had been an ill-assorted outfit when they started out with the cattle across the plains, but standing together shoulder to shoulder defying death against fearful odds, knits man deeply into the life of his fellow. Among these men there was no spoken sympathy, no overt act of kindness, but in their very sullenness was that grimmest of all sacfiflces each man enduring in etoic silence in order that he might not intrude his own suf- ferings upon his already overcrowded neighbor. The clinching of the lips to suppress a groan when one is thirst maddened may require more heroism than facing a cannon with flags flying and drums beating, inasmuch as 'he that ruleth his oWn spirit is greater than he that taketh a city"
 At last one day the Missourian gave out utterly. He was not of the cowboy build in the first place, but his splendid horsemanship and enthusiasm had induced Wilson, the boss, or "Yank- ee Bill" as he was called, to take him on In his delirium he lay and cried for water, day and night. He blubbered and begged for water, and called upon the names of those he had known in his childhood. Every man went about his own business, which was largely the formulating of fervent and eloquent oaths anent the heat, the drouth and the delay; and apparently no one heard his cries. Water was the one thing he wanted, and the one thing they could not get, so, after they had put his boots under his head to make him comfort able, they let him alone. Under ordn- ary circumstances Missourlan more or less was of no great consequence to Yankee Bill" but this break in the ranks shattered the last vestige of hope. Whatever may have been done after that in the effort to keep up their spirits was mere bravado, for each man fore saw the end
 The Missouran had been quiet sort in the camp and no one had ever heard him talk much, but now he talked inces- sanity in the soft, thick drawl of the South. And always of home scenes, of the memories of boyhood that whetted the edge of their torture till it was be- yond all enduring, Now he was fishing along some stream and swearing in round terms at some "fathead nigger" for soaring the fish; now he was in school struggling with some problem he could never solve beyond ''carry seven" Always coherent enough to call up in their own minds of youth misspent for the most part. They could not move further away because they were camped under tie only shade in sight. They thought of dragging him off beyond earshot but while every one would have been glad to have it done, no man could do 1t himself. Their horny hands had grown gentle in their minis tering touches.
 Escape was long since out of the ques- tion, for the horses were worse off than the men; not one of them could carry a saddle, much lees a rider. Each man had saved last charge in his revolver, knowing that that perhaps would be their only deliverance from death too horrible to name. All but East Side" 1rI,a hpd tn a n 1 a