As he stood, he leaned upon his weapon for support, and yet his tall figure and the massive framework of his bones suggested a wiry and vigorous constitution. His gaunt face, however, and his clothes, which hung so baggily over his shrivelled limbs, proclaimed what it was that gave him that senile and decrepit appearance. The man was dying—dying from hunger and from thirst.
He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little elevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the great salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of savage mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which might indicate the presence of moisture. In all that broad landscape there was no gleam of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with wild questioning eyes, and then he realised that his wanderings had come to an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to die. “Why not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence,” he muttered, as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.
Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless rifle, and also a large bundle tied up in a grey shawl, which he had carried slung over his right shoulder. It appeared to be somewhat too heavy for his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the ground with some little violence. Instantly there broke from the grey parcel a little moaning cry, and from it there protruded a small, scared face, with very bright brown eyes, and two little speckled, dimpled fists.
“You’ve hurt me!” said a childish voice reproachfully.
“Have I though,” the man answered penitently, “I didn’t go for to do it.” As he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty little girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart pink frock with its little linen apron all bespoke a mother’s care. The child was pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that she had suffered less than her companion.
“How is it now?” he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing the towsy golden curls which covered the back of her head.
“Kiss it and make it well,” she said, with perfect gravity, shoving the injured part up to him. “That’s what mother used to do. Where’s mother?”
“Mother’s gone. I guess you’ll see her before long.”
“Gone, eh!” said the little girl. “Funny, she didn’t say good-bye; she ‘most always did if she was just goin’ over to Auntie’s for tea, and now she’s been away three days. Say, it’s awful dry, ain’t it? Ain’t there no water, nor nothing to eat?”
“No, there ain’t nothing, dearie. You’ll just need to be patient awhile, and then you’ll be all right. Put your head up agin me like that, and then you’ll feel bullier. It ain’t easy to talk when your lips is like leather, but I guess I’d best let you know how the cards lie. What’s that you’ve got?”
“Pretty things! fine things!” cried the little girl enthusiastically, holding up two glittering fragments of mica. “When we goes back to home I’ll give them to brother Bob.”
“You’ll see prettier things than them soon,” said the man confidently. “You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you though—you remember when we left the river?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, we reckoned we’d strike another river soon, d’ye see. But there was somethin’ wrong; compasses, or map, or somethin’, and it didn’t turn up. Water ran out. Just except a little drop for the likes of you and—and——”
“And you couldn’t wash yourself,” interrupted his companion gravely, staring up at his grimy visage.
“No, nor drink. And Mr. Bender, he was the fust to go, and then Indian Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones, and then, dearie, your mother.”
“Then mother’s a deader too,” cried the little girl dropping her face in her pinafore and sobbing bitterly.
“Yes, they all went except you and me. Then I thought there was some chance of water in this direction, so I heaved you over my shoulder and we tramped it together. It don’t seem as though we’ve improved matters. There’s an almighty small chance for us now!”
“Do you mean that we are going to die too?” asked the child, checking her sobs, and raising her tear-stained face.
“I guess that’s about the size of it.”
“Why didn’t you say so before?” she said, laughing gleefully. “You gave me such a fright. Why, of course, now as long as we die we’ll be with mother again.”
“Yes, you will, dearie.”
“And you too. I’ll tell her how awful good you’ve been. I’ll bet she meets us at the door of Heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot of buckwheat cakes, hot, and toasted on both sides, like Bob and me was fond of. How long will it be first?”
“I don’t know—not very long.” The man’s eyes were fixed upon the northern horizon. In the blue vault of the heaven there had appeared three little specks which increased in size every moment, so rapidly did they approach. They speedily resolved themselves into three large brown birds, which circled over the heads of the two wanderers, and then settled upon some rocks which overlooked them. They were buzzards, the vultures of the west, whose coming is the forerunner of death.
“Cocks and hens,” cried the little girl gleefully, pointing at their ill-omened forms, and clapping her hands to make them rise. “Say, did God make this country?”
“In course He did,” said her companion, rather startled by this unexpected question.
“He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the Missouri,” the little girl continued. “I guess somebody else made the country in these parts. It’s not nearly so well done. They forgot the water and the trees.”
“What would ye think of offering up prayer?” the man asked diffidently.
“It ain’t night yet,” she answered.
“It don’t matter. It ain’t quite regular, but He won’t mind that, you bet. You say over them ones that you used to say every night in the waggon when we was on the Plains.”
“Why don’t you say some yourself?” the child asked, with wondering eyes.
“I disremember them,” he answered. “I hain’t said none since I was half the height o’ that gun. I guess it’s never too late. You say them out, and I’ll stand by and come in on the choruses.”
“Then you’ll need to kneel down, and me too,” she said, laying the shawl out for that purpose. “You’ve got to put your hands up like this. It makes you feel kind o’ good.”
It was a strange sight had there been anything but the buzzards to see it. Side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the two wanderers, the little prattling child and the reckless, hardened adventurer. Her chubby face, and his haggard, angular visage were both turned up to the cloudless heaven in heartfelt entreaty to that dread being with whom they were face to face, while the two voices—the one thin and clear, the other deep and harsh—united in the entreaty for mercy and forgiveness. The prayer finished, they resumed their seat in the shadow of the boulder until the child fell asleep, nestling upon the broad breast of her protector. He watched over her slumber for some time, but Nature proved to be too strong for him. For three days and three nights he had allowed himself neither
