“Arsenic!” exclaimed Adam.
“Yes. An’ here’s where I found a whole caravan of people dead. It was six years ago. Place hasn’t changed much. Guess it’s filled up a little with blowin’ sand.... Aha! Look here!”
Dismukes put the toe of his boot against a round white object protruding from the sand. It was a bleached skull.
“Men mad with desert thirst never stop to read,” replied Adam, sadly.
In silence Adam and Dismukes gazed down at the glistening white skull. Ghastly as it was, it yet had beauty. Once it had been full of thought, of emotion; and now it was tenanted by desert sand.
Adam and Dismukes spent half a day at that arsenic spring, under the burning sun, suffering the thirst they dared not slake there, and they erected a rude cross that would stand for many and many a day. Deep in the crosspiece Adam cut the words: “Death! Arsenic spring! Don’t drink! Good water five miles. Follow dry stream bed.”
Dismukes appeared to get deep satisfaction and even happiness out of this accomplished task. It was a monument to the end of his desert experience. Good will toward his fellow men!
* * * * *
At last the day came when Adam watched Dismukes drive his burros out on the lonely trail, striding along with his rolling gait, a huge, short, broad-backed man, like a misshapen giant. What a stride he had! The thousands of desert miles it had mastered had not yet taken its force and spring. It was the stride of one who imagined he left nothing of life behind and saw its most calling adventures to the fore. He had tired of the desert. He had used it. He had glutted it of the riches he craved. And now he was heading down the trail toward the glittering haunts of men and the green pastures. Adam watched him with grief and yet with gladness, and still with something of awe. Dismukes’ going forever was incomprehensible. Adam felt what he could not analyze. The rolling voice of Dismukes, sonorous and splendid, still rang in Adam’s ears: “Pard, we’re square!... Good-by!” Adam understood now why a noble Indian, unspoiled by white men, reverenced a debt which involved life. The paying of that debt was all of unity and brotherhood there existed in the world. If it was great to feel gratitude for the saving of his life, it was far greater to remember he had saved the life of his savior. Adam, deeply agitated, watched Dismukes stride down the barren trail, behind his bobbing burros, watched him stride on into the lonely, glaring desert, so solemn and limitless and mysterious, until he vanished in the gray monotony.