Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1902-03-06
Out from the
Valley
BY H. s. CANFIELD.
AUTHOR OF "MAID OF TIE WEST" ETC.
copyrighted by Daily Story Pub. Coz

N ECAUSE he was attached to the
r. Smithsonian institution and had
formed a part of several of its scien-
tific expeditions, Mr.. Francis Hope,
aged 30 and bachelor, was inclined to
believe that he knew good deal about
MANY things. He did not know, how
ever, that unrevealed iron deposits will
sometimes affect the needle of COM
pass, or that, even upon most barren
land, rocks and struggling grasses and
such things are as sure guides to
plainsman as chart. Therefore, when
his party had been five days in Deaths
valley, Mr.. Francis Hope left camp
in the morning with a mule and a
water bottle and in the afternoon
found himself lost. Around him on
every hand rose rock-ribbed lodges,
dark red in hue. Under his feet was
sand. moistureless and sometimes
shining with saline particles. Strapped
to his back was leathern bottle, pref
ty nearly emptied. A few PAGES away
was mule, with its long ears down be-
tween its irascible temper which helps
a football player, but is fatal to pro-
found mathematics. He walked to the
spraddling mule and kicked it in the
belly. The animal toppled over on its
side and died. He looked around for
the five hundredth time, to be met with
the same view of red rock, cloudy sky,
sand and solitary Spanish dagger"
growing here and there, sharp-spined,
dry, murderous, fit emblem of the
country. He said damn" and threw
his compass away. This helped him
little, because he then depended solely
upon himself Then he shook up the
water bottle, heard the faint gurgle in
side Of it, set his teeth, fixed his eye on
"a distant point and walked. He did not
know where nor in what direction he
was going, but, at least, he was 60
ing in a straight line. That was some
comfort. And he walked until swift
dark fell. Then the exhaustion which
comes from prolonged exertion ! an
atmosphere of 1875 degrees of heat
came upon him and he rolled and tossed
in restless sleep. He walked before day
light and wrestled hard with himself
to keep from draining the last drop
of water, and he won. At ten o'clock
next morning he estimated that he was
20 miles from the Nd mule. Nature
would not be denied longer. He raised
the bottle to his lips. A quarter pint
of warmish leathery water went down
his throat. He swore and threw the
bottle from him, set his eye upon dis
tant point and went on doggedly.
At four o'clock that afternoon the
lips of Mr.. Hope were black and cracked
and sand had got into the cracks. His
tongue, swollen and blackish also, pro-
truded half inch between his teeth.
His face was grayish yellow and the
skin was in folds. He stopped like an
old man and often stumbled. Setting
his eye upon a fixed point, he discov-
cred a strong tendency to walk in a
half circle. Sand was under his finger
nails, for he had fallen often, and his
feet were on fire. He mumbled to him
eslf:
Darwin was right-man's same as
jellyfsh-jellyfsh got no backbone
I've got no hackbone-all hell holds no
torment like this-give me to drink to-
night one single drop of Lethe's tabled
sup-must have been cool, cool, cool
and sparkling, that stream of Lethe,
else why should the Greeks prate about
it to dying mana dying man-that
ichthyosauri and peliosauri lived in
water-in water-the mammoth came
down to drink-to drink--curse all
mmoths-through breast and bone
drove the stone and slew him upon
the brink-upon the brink to drink
it was his blood drank-gushing blood
and it seemed cool, too"