OBBED of his burro, the saddlebags, and some of his supplies, and left by Galloway to get along as best he could, Seward went hunting for the cache where he had concealed the rest of his equipment. He was half an hour finding the pile of stones. He knew that camp and its surroundings as he knew his two hands, but groping his way to any particular point, other than the spring, was a difficult feat.
The drip of water, where it oozed from the rocks and rilled into the little basin below, was the one constant sound by which he guided all his sightless maneuvers. He could always get his bearings when he stopped to listen to that musical drip, drip, drip, at the spring.
In the cache were his first-aid kit, a side of bacon, two or three tins of sardines, his fire jack and cooking utensils, and his short-handled pick, shovel, hammer, and gold pan. It had been necessary to lighten Sandy’s pack in order to make it possible for La Joya to ride the burro with some small degree of comfort. The box of ointment with which he treated his eyes was in the pocket of the coat stolen by Galloway. Seward’s dirk knife was also in the coat.
All he could do for his eyes was to bandage them with gauze; and if he had thought himself equal to starting a fire and frying the bacon, there was no way of slicing it. He crushed one of the tins of sardines between two stones and managed to get at the contents. It was a slim meal, but enough.
His tobacco, cigarette papers, and matches were in the pockets of his khaki shirt. Hunting the shade of the dusty mesquite bushes, he spread out the tarpaulin, rolled himself a smoke, and tried to forget the aches and pains caused by Galloway’s fists and feet.
“I’m tough as a piece of rawhide,” he told himself, “and it’s a mighty good thing. The situation could be a whole lot worse than it is.”
That was always the way in which Seward faced his reverses: There was a satisfaction in knowing that ebbing fortune had stopped short of rock bottom. He was thankful for his strength for his ability to endure.
“And Galloway,” he reasoned grimly, “might have cut short my career with a bullet from my own gun. But I knew he hadn’t the nerve to go that far. I’m sorry for Sandy; that’s all.”
Burros’ ears are said to be long to catch curses, but Sandy’s ears had yet to catch the first curse from Seward. In all his five years of coming and going about the deserts, Sandy had been cared for and treated as a faithful friend. And the burro, in his brute way, showed his gratitude for kindly treatment. A whistle from Seward always brought him. Yes; Seward was deeply sorry for Sandy; in fact, he was fretting more on Sandy’s account than on his own. He could get out of his troubles, but the burro would suffer every kind of brutality if he ever reached Sonora with the hard-hearted Galloway.
“‘East of sunrise falls the night,’” Seward murmured as he smoked. “I’m beginning to understand now what that hunch meant for me. My night is pretty complete, for the present.” He smiled a bit at the fancy. “I’ll be here for two or three days, I suppose, before that black curtain lifts,” he went on musingly, “and I’ll be down to raw bacon before then. Oh, well; even that might be worse.”
Having finished his cigarette he lay back on the tarp and was soon asleep. How long he slept he could not know, but he was aroused suddenly by a thumping of hoofs in the sand. Lifting himself on one elbow, he listened intently. What was this? Was La Joya returning with the “bandidos” to look for the gold?
This thought gave Seward a good deal of concern until at last he had resolved the hoofbeats into those of a single horse. They passed very close to him, so close that a rider could scarcely have failed to see him; but they went on, with a rustle of mesquite branches, until they halted near the drip, drip, drip of the spring. There followed a sound of disturbed water.
“A riderless horse!” Seward reasoned, getting off the tarpaulin with sudden hope rushing through him. “That would be luck, if it were true. But it seems too good to be true!” he finished.
He moved forward toward the spring, guided by the splashing in the pool. At last he put out his hand, and it rested on a bony back. But only for a moment. At the first touch of his fingers the horse snorted, threw up his head, and would have shied off had not Seward made a haphazard grab for the animal’s head. The reins were trailing, and by luck Seward caught one of them.
“Steady, sport, steady!” he coaxed. “I’m not going to hurt you.”