The Bourbon news., 1902-02-21
copyrighted by Daily Story Pub. Coz


BECAUSE he was attached to the
Is Smithsonian institution and had
formed a part of several Of its sci9h-
tiic expeditions. Mr.. Francis Hope.
aged 30 and a bachelor, was inclined to
believe that he knew a good deal about
many things. He did not know, how
ever. that unreyealed iron deposits viii
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 a
p,ainsman as chart. Therefore. when
his party had been five days in Deaths
valley. Mr.. Francis Hope left camp
. 5n the morning with a mule and a
water bottle/and in the afternoon
found himself lost. Around him on
every ha1d rose rock-ribbed lodges.
Gark red in hue. Under his feet was
sand. /moistureless and sometimes
shining with saline particles. Strapped
TO bis back was leathern bottle, pret-
" hearty emptied. A few PAGES away
wax a mule, with its long ears down be-
tween its irascible temper which helps
a football player, but is fatal to pro-
found mathemat 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 a
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. al least, he was GO
ing in straight line. That was some
comfort. And he walked until swift
dark fell. Then the exhaustion which
comes from prolonged exertion in an
atmosphere of 125 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
90 miles from the dead 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 a half inch between his teeth.
His face was a grayish yellow and the
skin was in folds. He stopped like an
old man and often stumbled. Setting
his eve 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
iel]yfsh-jellyfsh got no backbone
I've got no back kbOne-all hell holds nc
torment like this-give me to drink to
night one single drop of Lethe's fa bled
sup-must have been cool, cool, COO
and sparkling, that stream of Lethe
else why should the Greeks prate abou
it to a dying mana dying man-tha
ichthyosauri and peliosauri lived il
water-in water-the mammoth came
down to drink-to drink-curse al
mammoths-through breast and bone
] drove the stone and slew him upoI
the brink-upOn the brink to drink
ii was his blood 1 drank-gushing bloOr
and it seemed cool, too"
The trained scientific mind of Mr.
Hope was wabbly. He sat down upol
pile of red pebbles and played will
them absently. He had dim disordere'
memories of his childhood, mixed u
with babbling brooks. He thought o
"iackstones" and tried to catch sev
eraI Of the pebbles on the back of hi
sore withered hand Then in the glar
ing sun he fell straight backward an
hurt his head. 1t seemed to him tha
he rose Immediately, but really he wa
Supine. for half an hour. He sat u
finally, and as he came backtoa sittin
posture, still muttering necessarily,
wild cry rang across the desert. It wa
Snarticulate, but there was despair j