The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-07-21
(centinued.)


 He had taken with him food for fif- teen days. and water which would last him a week with care. He had gath cred an idea of the route from con- yersation with the leader of the cara van. It lay for five hundred miIes due east. and then ran northwards. He had no compass with him, but the man who had explained the route Knew nothing of the compass. and had ex- pressed his directions Tn manrs. Tsn that the simplest could understand. The sun and fhe stars were the only guides in that wilderness.
 The first oasis lay nearly hundred miles to the east of the coast Hhe, but after that these green islands ID inc desolate ocean of sand appeared at intervals of about eighty miles. BIT Richard Gaunt had taken down min- ute directions as to the position or sun ana stars. and anything that could De reckoned as a landmark. and ne nad moi the slightest doubt about being ahIa to trace out his entire Journey across the desert. He might even fail in with another caravan on the great trail which ran from the north to the south like q high road.
 on the evening of the fifth day he sighted d black speck against the sky line. many miles to the south, and. ai- tering his course. found that he had reached the first oasis
 Ha stayed a week in this place. and then set out for the next oasis. He found it with Tess dffacufty than he had anticipated, and he oniy remained there two days. The solitude or the desert was beginning to prey upon ms nerves He was now anxious to move on as quickly as possible. to reach the great caravan route, where he couio hope occasionally to hear the souna oi d human voice and see his telloW men.
 Never before had he realize0 the meaning of complete solitude. me little settlement by the sea nao come as near to isolation as he thought pos sible. The continual company or the sama few people day after day was loneliness after the life of great city. and even after the life at Gaunt Royal. where, at any rate. he was in toucn with the events of the world. But this surpassed anything that he had ever imagined. He had read or men who had been cast on desert islands or men who had suffered lifelong imprison- ment and made friends with the mice and even spiders in their cells. But up to now he had never been able to grasp the reality of their feelings.
 At last however. he knew what it was to be alone, completely and abso- luteIv alone. save for the shambling beast which represented his only nope of ever meeting his fellow-men.
 The long, waving stretches of dun sand. the blue arch of the sky. seemed to form a prison as secure and certain as the walls of fortress. He was able to move about, 1t was true, but he only fancied himself as prisoner on an endless chain. He could move In any direction. and for any distance. but he could not escape. Ten. twenty. thirty, fifty, a hundred miiesi What aid 1t matter? There was still the aame boundary of desert. and still the tame unchanging roof of sky.
 He made a friend of the camel. ana hsed to talk to 1t hour after hour, as though it could understand and answaT him. Under similar circumstances. hor would have been a real companion. Rut d camel is a singularly unrespon. five animal, and although Gaunt fanoied it was a sympathetic friend he could not latter himself that 1t un- derstood much of what he said to st. He had read, however. of all that epider meant to a man who was serv- ing d long term of Imprisonment, ana a camel was, at any rate, more so-