Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1907-02-06
ST Most in The
L. z2!:s5!E4HEART Of
DEATH VALLEY
Ahnnag odgnfwes of O prospecIor
during Kree do>S' struggle without food
or water through blazing sands

as ran got out of the belt Of arsenic
springs, one of the accidents of fate
which l think saved my life.
"In two hours after 1 had drained
my canteen my tongue began to swell.
In three hours l could scarcely see the
tall peak ahead. Suddenly night came
down. There is no twilight in Death
Valley; it is daylight, then it is dark,
with none of that mysterious half light
which intervenes in other parts of the
world With the night came a slight
drop in temperature. My tongue was,
pressing hard against my teeth, and l
suppose the pain served to keep me
awake Presently 1 entered a canyon
Of some kind. l heard the trickle of
running water. l started to run to-
ward it. 1 staggered and fell head
long, cutting gashes in my face and
| hands. On my hands and knees, cut
and Scared by the jagged lava rocks
of the canyon, l crept in the direction
Of that sound.
II may have crawled an hour, may
hap five minutes, do not know, but
what l do know is that in that last
interval, with the drip, drip of that
life-giving stream ringing in my ears,
l suffered tortures. All at once, l felt
damp sand beneath my hands. In an
other dragging of my body its own
| length along the bed of the canyon, l
came on tiny rivulet. In the morn
| ing l saw that it was scarcely an inch
deep. But there, that night, hid in the
| lonely hills Of Death Valley, | lay,
| face down, in the trickling stream, and
| thought it the finest couch 1 ever rest
ed on. 1 fell asleep, lying on my side
| in the water When 1 woke the sun
was pouring over the wall Of the can
yon. My shoes were covered with
thin incrustation of borax, where the
waters of the little stream, heavily
! charged with the saline as they were,
had laved my feet. l rose unsteadily
and felt so dizzy that I Immediately
sat down again, plump into the stream.
l dreaded to leave the cooling waters.
After / had eaten my lunch it sudden
| ly occurred to me that the night before
had been unbearably dark. If 1 were
to cross the pit, then, it behooved me
to get on the move. In an instant
was on my feet, cool, collected, revived
by the appalling fact that here I was
forty blistering miles from a human
being, and foodless.
II soaked all my clothes in water
again and again, but the heat drew the
water from them almost as soon as
could lift myself from the pool. Five
! miles l walked down the slope. Sud-
denly, out of the west, there came a
filmy veil which rolled in over the
| great basin like a fog. But it wasn't
| fog. I knew what it was-a sand
storm, one Of those terrible American
simOons that sometimes sweep the Col
orado and the Mojave deserts. l fell
to my knees. No living thing could
stand before that blast. Hot as living
flame it seemed to scar my face. Into
my chapped lips it drove the fine par
ticles of its burden until they began
to bleed. 1 could scarcely breathe.
| The storm passed, but hung an
impenetrable curtain, between my
self and my destination.
How 1 passed that night no man,
not even myself, can ever know. With
out water, without food, lost in the
heart of Death Valley, l wandered in
what 1 strove to keep in a straight
line. Before morning my shoes were
full of gaping holes, where the rock
finished the job begun by the lava. l
remember little or nothing of the night
save that my only ambition was to
keep moving. Doubtless 1t was well
for me that / did so.
When morning dawned / can dis
tinctly remember seeing yawning di-
rectly before me the mouth Of a huge
canyon. 1t was the gorge of the Fur
mace Greek. Into it l staggered.
seemd to hear voices. Then l crawIed
on my hands and knees They tell me
I travelled so for all of two miles that
I could not have heard the voices Of
my rescuers at that distance. But l
did it, anyhow.
"And then I came to a gate in a
fence. l remember that distinctly. /
remember passing through the gate,
still on my hands and knees, and that
a band Of dogs came running ont to
bark at me. Doubtless l must have
been sorry looking object. But those
cowboys didn't think So. They knew
just what to do, and they did it in
stantly. 1 could not talk, 1 could not
stand alone. But to-day 1 am as we'll
as ever, though l can assure you that
never again will l attempt to cross
Death Valley in midsummer. Not with
4 train of camels would try it again"
In RotT Bin FarttouoIses.