Blandy set to work to build a fire. “You see,” he said, “Patton might change his mind about leavin’ us.”
By now, twilight had merged into night. On every side stretched the desert, as level, dark and melancholy as a sea. The mountain range to the northward, with its charred front one great inky shadow, was a dead island, rising out of a black waste of water. Blandy lighted the beacon, and it flamed up like the signal of someone shipwrecked.
They kept the fire burning steadily. They listened for far-off cries. But they heard no cries, only constant movements in the blackness about the camp. Heretofore, the desert had withheld nearly all evidence of animate things. Now, sitting and waiting, they caught the soft pad, pad of dog-like feet, the flutter of small wings.
At dawn, Blandy set off on a hunt for tracks. He first circled the camp. The only outgoing trail he found ended near by in the dry bed of a stream. He followed the stream-bed toward Searles. When he had gone several miles, he retraced his steps and passed the camp on his way toward the mountains.
It was late afternoon when he returned, tired out. But he came into sight waving his hat cheerily. “It’s all right,” he announced. “He went toward the mine.”
While they were preparing to break camp and follow Patton, Polly saw that Blandy was digging up one of the two canteens he had cached.
“On the way home, Jeff, can we make it from here to Searles on one?” she asked.
“Easy.”
“And from the mine to here, Jeff?”
“We’ll ketch a canteenful where it drips into that bowl in the rock.”