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Show 88 BY PATH AND TRAIL. become sweat and collect upon the skin. To sweat would have helped me, but no man sweats in the desert. I now discarded all my clothing but my undershirt, drawers, hat and boots, even my stockings I flung upon the dry sand. " And now, for the first time, I took a drink from my canteen, not much, but enough to partially quench the fire of my parched tongue. I had my senses about me, I retained~ my will, and I took the water, for I knew that my tongue was beginning to swell. At noon I struck a pot- hole, or sink, half filled with clear, sparkling water. I took some of it up in the lid of my canteen, touched my tongue to it and found it to be, what I suspected, impreg nated with copperas and arsenic. My body was on fire, and thinking to obtain some relief, I soaked my shirt, drawers and shoes in the beautiful cool water, and in my wet clothes struck for the mountains, looming some twenty miles ahead of me. I was a new man, and for an hour I felt neither thirst nor fatigue. 6 ' Then a strange numbness began to creep over my body. It was not pain, but a feeling akin to what I have been told incipient paralytics feel when the demon of paralysis has a grip on them. I sat down, drank some water, and for the first time since I left the canyon's mouth, took some food. When I tried to rise I fell over on my side, but I got up, lifted my canteen and looked around me." " Pardon me, Don Estaban, was your mind becoming affected? " " No, my brain was clear and my will resolute. They say hope dies hard. My hope never died, I pushed on, resolved if I must die, it would be only when my tired or diseased limbs could no longer obey my will. Ten miles, |