CACTUS AND MEXICANS

They now came upon bare, wind-swept plains, which alternated with blazing heat and bitter cold.  Once they nearly perished in a Norther, which drove down upon them with sheets of hail.  Fortunately their serapes were very thick and large, and they found additional shelter among some ragged and mournful yucca trees.  But they were much shaken by the experience, and they rested an entire day by the banks of a shallow little brook.

“Oh, for a horse, two horses!” said Obed.  “I’d give all our castles in Spain for two noble Barbary steeds to take us swiftly o’er the plain.”

“I think we’ll keep on walking,” said Ned.

“At any rate, we’re good walkers.  We must be the very best walkers in the world judging from the way we’ve footed it since we left the castle of San Juan de Ulua.”

They refilled their water bottles, despite the muddiness of the stream, and went on for three or four days over the plain, having nothing for scenery save the sandy ridges, the ragged yuccas, dwarfed and ugly mesquite bushes, and the deformed cactus.

It was an ugly enough country by day, but, by night, it had a sort of weird charm.  The moonlight gave soft tints to the earth.  Now and then the wind would pick up the sand and carry it away in whirling gusts.  The wind itself had a voice that was almost human and it played many notes.  Lean and hungry wolves now appeared and howled mournfully, but were afraid to attack that terrible creature, man.

They saw sheep herders several times, but the herders invariably disappeared over the horizon with great speed.  Neither Ned nor Obed meant them any harm, and they would have liked to exchange a few words with human beings.

“They think of course that we’re brigands,” said Obed.  “It’s what anybody would take us for.  Evil looks corrupt good intentions.”

The next day Obed was lucky enough to shoot an antelope, and they had fresh food.  It was a fine fat buck, and they jerked and dried the remainder of the body in the sun, taking a long rest at the same time.  Obed was continually restraining Ned’s eagerness to hurry on.

“The race is to the swift if he doesn’t break down,” he said, “but you’ve got to guard mighty well against breaking down.  I think we’re going to enter a terrible long stretch of dry country, and we want our muscles to be tough and our wind to be good.”

Obed was partially right in his prediction as they passed for three days through an absolutely sterile region.  It was not sandy, however, but the soil was hard and baked like a stone.  Then they saw on their left high but bare and desolate mountains, and soon they came to a little river of clear water, apparently flowing down from the range.  The stream was not over twenty feet wide and two feet deep, but its appearance was inexpressibly grateful to both.  They sat down on its banks and looked at each other.