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Show DOLORES. 83 and I with renewed determination to push on. Soon we sank into half- unconsciousness, and again revived as suddenly, but with all the pangs of thirst and fatigue greater than before. Slowly this anguish receded, and we sank into a condition of almost complete exemption from suffering, to again revive as suddenly to fiercer pangs. " But this time my vision seemed strangely cleared. The agony yielded to a dull pain, that left me power to think. I saw all the beauties of the landscape in a new light, and gazed on them with act-ual interest, while I pitied and blamed myself for such a feeling. I saw a mountain bluebird flit rapidly over the gorge, and wondered where he was flying and what for; then laughed loud and long at my-self for such untimely curiosity. I noticed a hillock of the desert ants near me, from which the red nation was pouring by hundreds, and a sand- toad near them ; then I remembered that these creatures avoid damp spots, where water is liable to percolate, and again the wild gorge rang with my fierce laughter at their strange habits. I saw a lean coyote steal across the cafion below us, and wondered what he was doing so far up in the hills, and why he had not remained on the plains, as usual, and whether he was lost and hunting for water; then the absurdity of this conceit struck me, and I made what I thought a very witty jest at his leanness, and laughed at my own wit till the cafion rang again. Suddenly I came to myself, and stared around me ; then my gaze fell on Dolores, lying full length upon the sand, and breathing heavily, and all my fierce energy returned. I raised her with unnatural strength, fairly bounded up the cafion several rods, and laid her at the foot of another rock. Again and again I repeated this, one moment kissing her lips and vowing to save her, the next laughing at my temporary fits of strength. At last I laid her in a cool depres-sion at the foot of a cliff, which seemed to have been split by some convulsion, and, for a space, relapsed into insensibility. " When I revived, the cool night had come again, and Dolores was sitting by me, clasping my hand. Such was the reviving effect of the night air, now sweeping down the cafion with a strong breeze, that we were greatly refreshed, and, after a sad, sweet interchange of thought, sank into a troubled sleep. Again we waked suddenly, almost at the same moment, and again the pangs of thirst were upon us in all their fury. Nature has still some mercy, even at her worst, and though a man die in torture, for want of food or drink, she secures him intervals of perfect rest from pain. But now our sufferings were at their worst. Mere abstinence from water for two days would not have produced such effects, but for our continued exertions. The cold night air pre- |
