It was very puzzling, and though he tried to make out where he was, he could see nothing but that big sack.
After lying still for some minutes, his reasoning powers began to act, and overcoming the disinclination to move, consequent upon his being so horribly stiff, he gave himself a wrench and turned right over on his other side.
This brought a little illumination, bodily and mental too, for the sun was beating down upon his face making him raise his hand stiffly to shade his eyes; and there before him lay Ned, flat upon his back, with his mouth wide open.
The mist floating in his brain now began to disperse, and rising upon one elbow he could see first one and then another of the party, lying fast asleep in different attitudes with the packs belonging to the expedition dotted-about anyhow, just as they had been released from the mules’ backs.
Then there were the bearers of the said packs about a couple of hundred yards away, every one with its muzzle near the ground, browsing busily at some kind of low, scrubby, greyish growth that looked like very dwarf juniper, while in quite another direction, there they were—all six—forming a group to themselves—the mustangs, their saddles still on and the reins upon the ground, cropping away at the thin wiry grass that clothed the sandy earth.
“Of course; I recollect now,” thought Chris. “I went to sleep on my pony, and must have fallen off without waking. Am I hurt?”
He screwed himself about and raised arms and legs, wincing a little the while.
“Yes, I am hurt,” he muttered. “I can hardly move, but I don’t think anything’s broken: it’s just as if the mules had been kicking me and the ponies walking about on my chest.”
His eyes wandered round again, and he sat up now with a start, the aforesaid eyes dilating and the lids getting so wide that he showed a good deal of white, while it seemed as if all the blood in his body had rushed to his heart, so horrible were his thoughts. But he could see no sign of rattlesnakes, and the heavy throbbing in his breast calmed down, to give place to a sensation of pleasure, as he breathed in the fresh elastic air and let his eyes rest upon a great blue mountain which towered up above a clump of a dozen or so on one side and as many more spreading away in a row, their tops looking like the teeth of a gigantic saw. In fact, it was one of the ranges to which the old Spanish settlers gave the name of Sierras.
“It is not what I dreamed about,” said Chris to himself. “Let me see—yes, that was of looking down into a glorious green valley with a sparkling river running through and beautiful park-like prairies on each side for the mules and ponies to graze in while we hunted and shot the buffaloes. Of course; I remember it all quite clearly, and about our going to bathe and drink, and—oh, how thirsty I am!”