hands Warren always succeeded in locating water. They dug,
but it lay too deep. At length, spent and sore, they fell and
slept through that night and part of the next day. Then they
succeeded in getting water, and quenched their thirst, and filled
the canteens, and cooked a meal.

The burning day found them in an interminably wide plain, where
there was no shelter from the fierce sun. The men were exceedingly
careful with their water, though there was absolute necessity of
drinking a little every hour. Late in the afternoon they came
to a canyon that they believed was the lower end of the one in
which they had last found water. For hours they traveled toward
its head, and, long after night had set, found what they sought.
Yielding to exhaustion, they slept, and next day were loath to
leave the waterhole. Cool night spurred them on with canteens
full and renewed strength.

Morning told Cameron that they had turned back miles into the
desert, and it was desert new to him. The red sun, the increasing
heat, and especially the variety and large size of the cactus plants
warned Cameron that he had descended to a lower level. Mountain
peaks loomed on all sides, some near, others distant; and one, a
blue spur, splitting the glaring sky far to the north, Cameron
thought he recognized as a landmark. The ascent toward it was
heartbreaking, not in steepness, but in its league-and-league-long
monotonous rise. Cameron knew there was only one hope--to make
the water hold out and never stop to rest. Warren began to weaken.
Often he had to halt. The burning white day passed, and likewise
the night, with its white stars shining so pitilessly cold and bright.