“Some one may pass this way,” pondered the younger man, hardly heeding his words. “It’s just worth trying,” and he lay silent while Anderson talked on or rather thought aloud.
“It’s of the boy I’m thinking,” he said. “The poor helpless little one. He never throve since his mother died. She didn’t go much on me, but the boy was everything to her though he was a cripple. Well--well--if I were only certain he was dead now it wouldn’t be half so hard. He’d be better dead, I know, but I couldn’t think it before; he was all I had, and the last time I saw him he put up his little hand--such a mite of a hand--and clutched his daddy’s beard. He was all I had, how could I wish him dead? But now--now--my God!--if I were certain he was dead and it hadn’t hurt much.”
Helm sprang to his feet, and swore an oath.
“We’re not going to die,” he cried, “not as easily as all that. Come on, we have wasted enough precious time.
“Not till it’s a little cooler. It’s no good, I tell you, wearing ourselves out in the heat.”
And Helm, seeing the advice was good, lay down again. Lay down and tried not to listen to the cawing of the crows, the only sound that broke the stillness--tried not to think of cool waters; not to think of a household down south; not to think of the girl who, notwithstanding his mate’s cynical warning, filled all his thoughts. He dozed a little and dreamed, and wakened with a start and a strong feeling upon him that it had been something more than a dream, that some one had really called him, was calling him still. Was it his mother’s voice, or that girl’s, or was it Anderson’s? Anderson was sleeping heavily, and strong man as he was, sobbing in his sleep. Helm stretched out a hand to awaken him and then paused. Why should he? What had he better to offer than these broken dreams?
He broke a branch from a tree, thereby scattering the crows and stepped down to the edge of the glittering white salt. It crunched beneath his feet like sand, and he went on till the hard crust began to give way beneath him and the thick mud oozed up. Then when he thought it was moist enough to resist the fierce hot wind, which was blowing from the north like a breath from an oven, he prepared to write his last message. And then came the difficulty.