Paul Carhart had organized the panic; now he was resolved to “work it out of them,” as he explained aside to Young Van. He estimated that they should reach the pool before eight o’clock in the morning. That would mean continuous driving, but the endurance of mules is a wonderfully elastic thing; and as for the men, the sooner they were tired, the less danger would there be of a panic. Accordingly, the three leaders set off at a canter. The drivers caught the pace, lashing out with their whips and shouting in a frenzied waste of strength. The mules galloped angrily; the wagons rattled and bumped and leaped the mounds, for there was not the semblance of road or trail. Now and again a barrel was jolted off, and it lay there unheeded by the madmen who came swaying and cursing by. Here and there one calmer than his fellows climbed back from a seat by his driver and kept the kegs and barrels in place.
Wonderfully they held the pace, over mile after mile of rough plain. Then, after a time, came the hills,—low at first, but rising steadily higher.
In the faint light the sage-brush slipped by like the ghosts of dead vegetation. The rocks and the heaps of bones gave the wheels many a wrench. The steady climb was telling on the mules. They hung back, slowed to a walk all along the line, and under the whip merely plunged or kicked. Up and up they climbed, winding through the low range by a pass known only to the guide. One mule, a leader in a team of six, stumbled among the rocks, fell to his knees, and was dragged and pushed along in a tangle of harness before his fellows came to a stop. In a moment a score of men were crowding around. Up ahead the wagons were winding on out of sight; behind, the line was blocked.
“Wonderfully they held the pace.”
“Vat you waiting for?” cried a New Orleans man, feverishly. He had been drinking, and had lost his way among the languages. “Laissez passer! Laissez passer!”
The boys were cooler than the men—not knowing so well what it all meant. “Hi there, Oui-Oui, gimme a knife!” cried the youthful driver, shrilly.
He slashed at the harness, cut the mule loose, and drove on. And one by one the wagons circled by the struggling beast and pushed ahead to close up the gap in the line.
Eight hours were got through. It was four in the morning. The hills lay behind, an alkaline waste before. The mules were tugging heavily and dejectedly through the sand. Certain of the drivers sat upright with lined faces and ringed eyes, others lay sleeping on the seats with the reins tied. All were subdued. The penetrating dust aggravated their thirst.