“Surely,” said the King, “treat him therefore as a man and not as a dog. Now leave me. I am weary of your quarrel.”
Again we departed; as we reached the anteroom she whispered: “May I not do as I please with you?”
“You may indeed,” said I, “but trample no longer upon my heart, I beseech you.”
“Thou art but a poor fool,” said she, “why not make me be good since I have loved thee from the first? Do I not love thy eyes and thy curly hair and thy straight back and even thy coat and hat. Surely I love thee, thou blind goose!”—and fled again. But this time I was too quick. I caught her and I have held her ever since, and with her good will as she declares and I believe. She has been my willing slave and I hers. Hath any man ever had a more devoted mate? Did she not visit me each day I spent in the iron cage at Loches? In rain, in fog, in sleet, in sunshine; still she came, and she is mine and I am hers, forever.
Death Valley
Away out in California, near the Nevada line, lies a lonely valley. No one lives in this valley very long; it is a very lonesome place. In the winter the thermometer goes down below freezing point at night and rises to eighty degrees during the day. This is the pleasant time of year. In the spring and fall violent wind storms sweep over the desert, for it is a desert—the Mohave Desert—and in the summer the hot wind blows, drying up every drop of moisture and baking the country as if it had been placed in a baker’s oven. The few who must stay there get a leather-like skin from the heated wind and the glaring sun, with never a cloud to hide its pitiless rays. Sagebrush and greasewood are found here and there, and in the infrequent river bottoms a few willows are seen. Fissure springs, from deep faults in the earth’s crust let out small streams of water from sources far remote; sometimes fit to drink; sometimes loaded with salts in solution and sometimes hot. Such a spring is that which gives rise to Willow Creek which rises among the niter hills of the Great Basin and empties into the Amargosa River a short distance below its source. Alas for the name! The Amargosa “River” turns out on examination to be a stream scarce large enough to turn a mill. After a run of less than 25 miles it sinks into the sands to rise no more. Shortly below this place we find Saratoga Springs and “Lakes.” These “Lakes” are perhaps 10 feet in diameter. All along the banks of the Amargosa the water as it evaporates rapidly in this thirsty land leaves a white crust of salt, soda and borax. In many places, scattered over the desert, deposits of mixed salts have been left by evaporated water which glisten in the sun from a distance. As the weary traveler walks through them the alkali rises in fine white clouds burning throat and nostril and biting the skin into sores.
Over this desert roams the dismal coyote—always hungry, an Ishmaelite. Kangaroo rats swarm in rocky spots; the side-winder threads his snaky way; and lizards and tarantulas scuttle to their holes to escape the traveler.
In 1849 the Bennett family wandered into this valley and perished, giving to the valley its name. All along the wagon tracks—for there are no roads—bottles, tin cans and the skeletons of abandoned animals mark the progress of civilization and the survival of the fittest. It is a weary land; over 400 feet below sea level; bounded by the black rocks of the Funeral Range on the northeast, the Kingston Range on the north, the Shadow Mountains on the southeast, the Avawatz Mountains on the south and the Telescope Range on the west. These mountains rise in some places to a height of 10,000 feet. The springs are far apart, from 30 to 90 miles, often with a very small flow and hard to find. At Cave Wells, for example, the traveler in search of water goes into a hole in the side of a cliff and descends a few steps to the margin of a shallow pool with no apparent overflow.