canteen. He threw his own away.

Soon afterward Warren discovered the loss.

"Where's your canteen?" he asked.

"The heat was getting my water, so I drank what was left."

"My son!" said Warren.

The day opened for them in a red and green hell of rock and cactus.
Like a flame the sun scorched and peeled their faces. Warren went
blind from the glare, and Cameron had to lead him. At last Warren
plunged down, exhausted, in the shade of a ledge.

Cameron rested and waited, hopeless, with hot, weary eyes gazing
down from the height where he sat. The ledge was the top step
of a ragged gigantic stairway. Below stretched a sad, austere,
and lonely valley. A dim, wide streak, lighter than the bordering
gray, wound down the valley floor. Once a river had flowed there,
leaving only a forlorn trace down the winding floor of this forlorn valley.

Movement on the part of Warren attracted Cameron's attention.
Evidently the old prospector had recovered his sight and some of
his strength, for he had arisen, and now began to walk along the
arroyo bed with his forked peach branch held before him. He had
clung to the precious bit of wood. Cameron considered the prospect
for water hopeless, because he saw that the arroyo had once been
a canyon, and had been filled with sands by desert winds. Warren,
however, stopped in a deep pit, and, cutting his canteen in half,