University of San Francisco - USF Don Yearbook (San Francisco, CA)

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T II !•: I; R KS II M A x . derc r on that | arelic ! spot. Collecting lii en es. he realized that he was going deeper and deeper into the unchartered stillne of the murderous waste. A moment more and he was seeking a soft place on which to jump from the animal's back. Carefully poising himself, he made the leap. There was now hut one course, and that was to retrace his steps and trust tu Providence to save him. Murmuring a short prayer, a practice to which Jim was unaccustomed, he trudged on. I»y nightfall, he thought, he could reach the Colorado, where he was certain to find water. Mis tongue, now swollen twice its natural size, clung to the roof of his mouth, and fairly ached for want of the reviving lotion. 11 is eyes burned from the overpowering brilliancy of the noon-day sun. and his head throbbed with a dull dizzy ache. A few hours more, water and with it. safety would he his. ( hnvard he pressed, the sun growing hotter and seeming to mock his struggling efforts to cheat its strength, the desert glared at him. defying him to evade its deadly influence. Now hi feet were sore, the sands burned through the soles of his shoes, and his progress was extremely slow and painful. I hit knowing he must labor on or perish, he struggled all the more— every step an effort. Law son. now frantic with thirst, peered before him. and his eyes rejoiced at what lie saw. There not a mile away, a clear blue lake enamoured the attention of his longing eyes. Mere at las» in thi lake so newly found, was refuge from the over-bearing heat and stillness of the desert plain. Again he trudged on. hut now with gladdened expectation. Mis feet were painfully swollen from contact with the piercing heat of the sandy floor, their soles cracked and bleeding, hut he struggled on. 19 Then of a sudden, the waters receded, the wide blue lake became a scorched gully. The mirage had led him on and then melted into the silence of the failing sands. Was this the water he had hoped would save his life? Jim threw himself on lrs knees and his arm outstretched, sorrowfully surveyed the circling barren: to the east were the hills he had 0 hopefully left that morn, and as he gazed at them he wondered at the fate of the fugitive animal. Look where he would, his eyes could see no water, no comfort. Maddened, he gouged his tired fingers into the burning sands in |iicst of his lone desire, water. I le dug until his nails fell off and his finger tips were running blood that dried and caked as it dropped upon the scorched bosom of the plain. Then with a groan and a piteous wail that told of his sad plight, he fell prone on his face and silently awaited the death that would release him from this unrelenting heat. Slowlx raising his aching head, he gazed into the east, and there again he saw that mirage of water that had beckoned him across the desert and left him there to die. With a hollow laugh, he flung his weary form towards the hiring spectre, and again cast himself to die. alone and forgotten in that neglected region of heat and silence. 'File sun. whose lurid rays had led him on and then struck him low. was now setting. Just as Satan tempts to sin. and having conquered, leaves his victim to conscience and remorse, so had the sun lured the man to brave the arid plain and then had left him helpless and forlorn to die in that desolate waste, far from the world of comfort and relief. The last purple ray of the departing sun had sunk beneath the western mountain, when the moon, following the custom of the scene, rose silently to pass its nightly vigil o’er the scorched

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18 T II E FR ESI I M A X . i Clir Drsrrt ffliranr L( ) VLY over the whitened mountain top. that rose as a buttress against the further march of the desert waste, appeared the blazing rim of the rising sun. glistening the distant snow peaks to dazzling brilliancy. On this side of the I Hue Ridge Mountains lies the Colorado canyon, the boundary between California and Arizona. St ruing to lose itself in the bosom of the earth, its upright banks- the silent markings of a life of toil—the (Irand Canon has been wrought through centuries of effort by the Master I land of Nature. To the west the canon looks on the southern part of California, and a more dreary sight could scarce be seen in those days when irrigation was almost unknown and when our present smiling farms were but barren fields of weeds. As far as the eye could see tlu wasted sands of the Mohave Desert stretched out. sparkling Heath the blazing sun and overcast with a deadly silence that bespoke some coming tragedy. As the sun rose higher, it disclosed two figures resting on the outskirts of this arid scene. A man and his horse were camped beside the Colorado river. The horse was grazing on a sickly patch of grass that grew along the river’s bank: now and then the beast would turn around to see if its master were still in sight. Soon the man arose, stretched his sinewy arms, saddled his mount and then swung himself into place on the horse’s back. lie was making for the 3 liar Ranch situated at the foot of the Coast Range and close to Buena Vista Lake, having come from lower Nevada to take charge of his uncle s outfit. In his letter of appointment. he was advised to follow the course of the Colorado for thirty mile 5 after it leaves the canon and then to make a short dash across the desert. Hut since supplies had failed he deemed it unwise to follow that long route, and chose to make an immediate break across the mountains and around Death alley to his destination. In this way his journey was shortened but 'twas a hard one for the horse as the roads were extremely rough and rocky: but he figured that a day’s hard journey would not hurt the beast as it could get a good rest when the camp was reached. With a light heart, therefore. Jim Lawson, sprang to his saddle and ascended the mountain side: the summit gained, he gazed in silence upon the sombre desert that lay far to the south and west, beneath him stretched the valley of a thousand tragedies—the Valley of Death. Slowly guiding his horse down the barred slope, he rode along the base. The sun was now high in the sky. the heat was over-bearing. Suddenly the ponv halted, turned its head looked at its rider, and then, without a sign of warning, was off across the unwatered wastes of Death Valiev. Jim was stunned by the quickness of the move: he pulled the reins, hut to no avad: he pleaded with the maddened brute as he often did when herding cattle. but the poor horse was crazed with the sweltering heat. Bv the time Law-son was able to collect his thoughts he was well into the valley: turning hi-, eves toward his destination, everywhere he saw the same, nothing but the still desert, its sun-baked sands reflected the sun’s rays and caused a sudden dizziness in the now terrified figure on the fleeing horse. W ater was Jim’s first thought. Water, the same thought that comes to all wan

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20 T II K I ' K K S II M A X . plain. Its silvery beams shrouded the desert with a pall of loom as it rested after its day of tragedy. No sound broke the solemn stillness ot‘ the night, nothing to see but the now-cooling sands, the ghastly guardian of the night, and the distant stars, gazing peacefully at the sleeping world. The light of the moon fell upon the unconscious Lawson near the outskirts of Death alley—and then the stars, as wicked children peeking through the sky to look on a forbidden sight, strove to catch a glimpse ol the prostrate figure felled bv the power of their guardian, the sun. As morning neared, a hand of cowboys roaming by the mountain’s base descried the prostrate form of a stricken fellow, with quickened step they pushed on to the spot and in a few minutes were beside the unconscious Lawson. Tenderly, they raised him on a pony dried his swollen lips with generous quarts of water, and started for the cooling Colorado, that silent figure had so gladly left but a morn-ago. Across the sombre waste, the low ly departing moon followed the procession shielding them with its borrowed rays, dropping cool shafts to light the way but now to roast the sands to deadly work The stars peeked in silence through the studded sky. and as the men neared the mountain base, they all withdrew, seeking their rest beneath the motle mantle of the coming dawn. In the morning the sun rose again looking in vain for the victim of it day-old heat. Sweeping the plain with beets of dame, it sought some new wanderer to lure to death in the nil watered wastes of the sun’s graveyard. Death alky. Ciias. I I. ko!.i C. ri.Mi-:i.i .