He stretched forth his wasted, jail-bleached hands, and regarded them, snarling. Then he raised them, shaking them at the sky.
“I’ll live to do it yet! Do you hear?” he shrieked, “I say I will live!”
He beat the desert air with his clenched fists.
“God—devil—whatever you are that runs this hellish world, you’ve got to let me live. I’ll make that infernal side-winder wish he could hide in hell’s mouth, before I die!”
The torrent of his rage was stemmed by a vicious attack of that racking cough. It tore his chest, and flecked his lips with blood. When it was over he lay upon the sand for a long time, sobbing the dry, anguished sobs of a man’s helpless woe.
The sun, rising above the distant mountains, shone red upon him. The camel left the mesquite’s thin shade for the warmer light and the pad of its soft feet aroused Gard. He must not let the creature get away.
He rose, painfully, and went to it, considering the brute carefully. A plan was dawning in his brain. He took the strap that served him for a belt, and buckled it around the camel’s neck. The animal followed him, docile as a sheep, when he led it back to the mesquite. Then he bethought himself of the oats, in the horse’s bag, below.
Going to the edge of the arroyo he could see it in the wreck of the road-wagon, and he made his way painfully down to it. As he was clambering back he noticed that the back spring of the light rig still clung to it by a single bolt. A slight wrench brought it away, and he secured it, with a vague feeling that it might prove useful.
The full horror of his position was becoming clear to him. He was alone in the desert, without food or weapons. He put the thought away, summoning all his faculties for the need of the moment.
The camel was indifferent to the oats, turning from them to the mesquite, after a tentative investigation. With his belt and the harness rein, Gard proceeded to fashion a sort of rude hackamore, which he put over the creature’s head. The great beast, as soon as it was adjusted, settled itself, as by instinct, in an attitude of waiting, while Gard proceeded to fill his canteen and to gather quantities of mesquite beans, bestowing them in the feed bag, and in the pockets of Arnold’s coat.