The Cooperstown courier. (Cooperstown, Griggs Co., N.D.) 1902-1913, 1904-09-15


Colet collapsed with all the symptoms
of violent sunstroke. His face be-
came almost black. His pulse beat fu-
riously. "Water!" he muttered, with
cracked lips. His companions turned
away. Then followed delirium. He
murmured of running streams and
splashing fountains. Death comes
quickly when the thermometer marks
135 degrees on the Sahara. The poor
lad suddenly sprang to his feet, and.
staggering from the hut, he put his
palms together above his head and
dived, as one dives from river bank,
headlong into the black shadow of
the tower, streaming across the sand.
When Littlefield reached him he was
dead.
The sun completed its circuit and
sank like plummet toward the vest
ern horizon. Belleau and his assistant
feebly tried the boring again. The
drill was withdrawn with some diff
Guilty. When it came to the surface it
was coated with stiff clay, cool to the
touch. The old engineer pointed to it.
He could not speak. 1t was a ques-
ton of few hours.
Belleau, completely exhausted, threw
himself down on the sand at the door
of the hut and seemed to sleep. Lit
tletield, lying fiat on his back, tried
to gaze through thesgra depths of the
zenith. Suddenly, far above, he per-
ceived black spot that lowered and
circled in a wide orbit. It seemed to
be watching intently. A sickness Of
utter horror and despair came upon the
young man.
He approached his chief and touched
the shoulder of the still form. There
was no response. "Belleau!" he ex-
claimed, with hoarse emphasis. No
answer. He passed his hand over the
temple fringed with gray locks. The
flesh was chill and harsh. The heart
had ceased to beat. The old engineer
had passed away as peacefully as q
baby goes to sleep within its mothers
encircling arms. The drill, never
stopped.
"Clink-clank! Clink- clank!"
When Littlefield opened his eyes
again the lids seemed to crate heavily
upon the balls. He looked UP. The
gray sky was gone and the odious black
spot with it. 1t was night, and over
the velvet depths of space the imperial
tropic stars were passing in majestic
procession. They shone with wonder
full brilliancy.
The young engineer gazed drowsily
at them. He felt strangely comfortable
as he lay there upon the sand. The
tormenting thirst had ceased. He did
not even feel surprised when he found
that his limbs had lost the power Of
motion. Life seemed concentrated in a
small area of the brain just behind
the eyes. He perceived nothing but
those glorious wheeling stars-some
red, some blue, some of q yellow lus-
ter.
Then came fleeting visions of far
! distant landscape. A New England
house, white clapboarded, with prim
green shutters-great elm trees over
arching, and the continual gurgle of a
brook, flowing underneath plank
bridge-all the odorous sweets of June
were in the air, and he was walking
up the path. A slight girl stood at the
gate and stretched out her hands to
him, smiling angelically with brown
eyes, that looked clearly into his own.
Harry" she said, and her voice
sounded like the far-away tinkle of a
silver bell, "you have come at last"
Then the light went out like a glow
ing coal, and only the great calm, des-
ert stars looked down pityingly.
"Clink-clank! Clink-clank!"
But when the day came again the
great drill had ceased its clanking.
In those hours of darkness the waters
under the earth. liberated from their
prison, had burst with impetuous force
through the vent. tossed the machine
aside, and the first rays of the sun
were reflected on the ebullient flood
that bubbled up from the we'll, gushed
in rainbow spray around the iron
posts of the tall derrick. filled the hol-
lows beside the track with crystal
pools, and then fastened by three dark,
| silent forms that needed it not, before
plunging once more into the sands that
gave it birth.
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