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Show 82 BY PATH AND TRAIL. in upon the mighty waste of silence and sand, the cacti and the flower- bearing plants droop down and lie low along the earth. Then, when the storms have passed, the plants slowly, cautiously, as if to make sure their enemy is gone, rise again to their full height. Only the mesquite and grease- wood of toughened and hardened fibre refuse to bow down to the tyrant of the hurricane, and unless torn up by the roots they never yield. But the cacti, save alone the pitahaya, of giant strength, tremble at the ap proach of the storm, contract, shrivel up and lie low. " I have often, in my tramps across deserts, stopped and examined a cactus which we call the ' Bodillo.' It has no roots, is perfectly rounded, and its spires or nee dles, for some mysterious reason, point inward, as if its enemy were within itself. Unless it draws its nourish ment from the air, I do not know how it survives. It is the plaything of the winds. When the sand storm riots in the desert, the wind plays with the ' Bodillo' and rolls it along forty or fifty miles. " " How often do these storms come, senor?" " Well, it's this way; for your winters in the North you have snow and ice, in the South they have rain; here on our deserts we have winds, and these winds are with us for three months, mild as a sea breeze to- day, and to morrow rushing with the speed of a hurricane. But to come back to the ' Eodillo. ' When the storm of wind has lifted, this ball cactus is left on the desert, and if during the vernal equinox rain falls, the plant throws out a few rootlets, gets a grip somewhere in the sand till it flowers and seeds, and is off again with the next wind. ' ' " Is there any hope for a man if he runs short of water forty or fifty miles out in the desert?" " A man," replied my host, " who is taught to desert |