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Show We set off, I providing the food and he the map. We followed the trail around the south end of Blue Mountain. We plunged into a maze of arroyos and ridges. For some days we wandered. I never saw the map. As we rode farther into a wilderness moistened rarely with tiny trickles of springs, I felt increasingly doubtful. He showed a keen appetite for food but seemed to have lost interest in everything else except sex. I was not absorbed in the latter topic in the way he was. I rebuffed his overtures. We ceased to converse beyond a grim "Yes" or "No" necessary sometimes for travel and meals. One night we halted at an abandoned ranch between juniper dotted ridges. After a dour, disgruntled supper we rolled up in our blankets, About midnight a banging and clattering awakened us. In the old corral where we had penned our mounts, my horse Blaze lay on his side convulsively kicking the slab walls. He was ill. The corral was full of rank weeds, and some may have been poisonous. When dawn came I was alarmed and puzzled. My companion showed no interest in my problem. He was all for pushing on-the Spanish mine was near now, probably just over the ridge, he asserted glumly. But Blaze could not continue into the wilds. About sunrise, he staggered to his feet with utmost difficulty and stood trembling with his head down. Leaving much of the remaining food with the stranger, I started walking, leading Blaze. Weak as he was he could not be ridden. I even doubted if I should make him walk. But I reasoned he might work his way out of his illness with exercise. When old Frank, now dead, had previously suffered colic, I had been told to trot him up and down to assist release of gas. |
