The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1903-02-03
Out from the
Valley
BY II. S. CANFIELD.
AUTHOR OF mad OF TEE VEST" ETC
to0pyaghted By DAILY ssory Pub Coz

ECAUSE he was attached TO the
ID Smithsonian institution and had
formed a part of several of its scien-
tifc 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 u~Hrevealed iron deposits viii
sometimes affect the needle Of a 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 a 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 roek-ribbed lodges,
dark red in hue. Under his feet was
sand. moistureless and sometimes
shining with saline particles. Strapped
TO his back was a leathern bottle, pFet-
~ nearly emptied. A few PAGES away
was q 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 il in the
belly. The animal TOPPED over on its
side and died. He looked around for
the FIVE hundredth time. Il be met with
the same view of red rock. cloudy sky.
sand and solitary Spanish dagger"
growing here and there. sh~arp-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
q distant point and walked. He did not
know where nor in what direction be
was going. but. at least. he was go
ing in a 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 12s 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 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 upona dis
tant pcint and went on dogged,y.
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 blacklist 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 eye upon a fixed point, he diseov-
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. lie mumbled to him
eslf:
Darwin was right-man's same as
jellyfsh-jellyfsh got no backbone
I've got no backbone-aI hell holds no
- AANAA INT AAAS SlhS lC 10 NEluh TO-
night one single drop of Lethe's fab.ed
sup-must have been cool, cool. cool
and sparkling. that stream of Lethe.
else why should the Greeks pirate about
it to a dying dying man-that
ichthyossuri and peliosauri lived in
water-n water-the mammoth came
down to 6rink-to Grink-curse all
mammoths-through breast aud bone
/ drove the stone and slew him upon
the brink-upon the brink TO drink
it was his blood 1 drank-gushiug blood
land it seemed cool, too"
The trained scientific mind of Mr..
Hope was wabbly. He sat down upon
a pile of red pebbles and played with
them absent.y. He had dim disordered
memories of his childhood, mixed up
with babbling brooks. He thought of
sj~aekstones" and tried TO catch sew
eral of the pebbles on the back of his
sore withered hand. Then in the gar
ing sun he fell straight backward and
hurt his head. 1t seemed to him that
he rose Immediately. but really he was
Supine for half an hour. He sat up
finally, and as he came back to a sitting
posture, still muttering necessarily, a
wild cry rang across the desert. 1t was
inarticu.ate, but there was despair in