“Whoever runs this outfit,” he whispered, “has remembered it, after all.”
It was long before he could bring himself back to reality. Only the gathering autumn gloom, coming early, in the cañon’s depth, finally recalled him. He began turning over in his mind the means he must contrive with which to meet this emergency. If only he had the tools!
“It’s up to me to make some,” he said aloud, and at the words he suddenly turned and looked back at the golden vein he was leaving.
“You’re great!” he shouted; “You’re bully to have; but you ain’t all there is to it!”
He spread out his hard hands. “These that can make the things to get you out with are better yet,” he said, speaking more slowly.
For he suddenly remembered the pit from which he was digged, and the man’s heart yearned to his fire beside the clean pool, and for the life there that he had wrested from nothing.
CHAPTER VI
Gard and Jinny were on an expedition after salt. The instinct hidden in the gray little hide was so much more useful in the case than the thinking machinery beneath the man’s thatch of hair, that she had long ago led him to a desert supply of this commodity, which he had longed for, without being able to supply his need.
He was utilizing the trip in an effort to make Jinny bridlewise, a proceeding which filled her with great displeasure. She was a sturdy little brute, of good size for a wild burro, and she bore his weight without apparent effort; but she had a fondness for choosing her own direction, and objected, strongly, to the guiding rein. She protested, now, raising her voice, after the manner of her kind, when Gard, from her back, essayed to turn her at his will.
“Jinny! Jinny!” he remonstrated; “Not for the world would I call you anything but a lady; but I can’t be so mistaken, Jinny! You’re not a nightingale!”