B

CHAPTER I.-THE CROWS.

Y DAY, the craggy slope between the Funeral Mountains and Death Valley is ravaged by scorching winds, dry and deathdealing; by night is swept by the dismal nursery of chill and spectral mists. In the unnatural extremes of this forsaken waste no man may live; yet, men are there.

The atmosphere is parching, the ground is poisonous, grassless and sterile. Over rocks, venomous reptiles lazily creep and loll in the glare of the sun. The rattlesnake will doze in peace upon the crust of alkali or on superheated walls of stone. The Gila monster bathes in the heat waves as they kindle upwards from the rocks, and in the chill of the evening, the mountain rats venture safely from their homes in the crags and sport over a world that is entirely their own. Far above the things that crawl and gnaw; above the endless piles of sand; above the treacherous box-canyons; above these piles of mountains sheering off into hell; above the mirage and the saline pools of stagnant water, the crows, overhead and coming from nowhere in particular, keep faithful vigil. They watch men die, then caw and bring from the uncharted void scores of associates with lusty claws to hold high carnival around the carcass.

The atmosphere is clear; so clear that the wise measure distances but not with the eye. Sometimes, not one black speck can be seen overhead, but always the sagest of undertakers are there in fit array for their ghastly profession.

Not half way up the Death Valley Slope, three travelers, followed by twice as many laden burros, were headed for

Greenwater. The certainty with which they pursued their pathless course proclaimed a knowledge of the illimitable of the solitudes. The caravan toiled up a steep incline, sheering off into a perpendicular box-canyon below and rounded into a cruel coppery sky not far above. Although their course led at times over dangerous sheets of sliding shale, or wound through huge boulders barely balanced upon the steep mountain side, the file, in its snake-like silence, seemed all unconscious of the dangers of the country.

Those in the prospecting party were dressed alike, khaki trousers, high steelshod boots, and soft felt hats. He in the van wore a bright red shirt, being younger was as yet, in complexion, not burned quite as black as his companions. The latter were of no particular complexion; the desert had claimed them as its own. They were of the paleness of the alkali dust, of the rugged red of the rocks and of the unyielding tint of the crags-a desert bleach!

"Here's the ledge leadin' to the old Yonk prospect, an' if Madison uses his old cache, here's where we take water." And the leader turned to his companions.

The party came to a standstill, and the two in the rear looked in silence at the ledge in question. The speaker stepped from the open into an alcove between two boulders, and explored the sandy surface of the ground with his boot, presently discovering what was apparently the corner of a five gallon kerosene can. In two minutes it was unearthed, and the three seated themselves, hats over their eyes, in silence, around the uncovered treasure.

"Well," began the second of the party, in a voice so husky as to be scarcely more than a whisper. Not that he had dropped

his voice, for a foggy whisper was its richest tone. Whiskey and the desert sands had robbed him of any other. "Do we need it bad enough?"

"We need it worse 'n Madison does, right now, an' if he finds it's gone-well, we've got to look after ourselves, any way you look at it."

"What's the difference," spoke up he of the red shirt in a pleasant voice. "We will just leave a note saying that we needed it. Or I have it-why not buy the whole five gallons and leave the money in its place?"

The leader's small gray eyes wandered up the red shirt in an amused pucker, until finally they found those of its possessor, and then the equanimity of the dreary landscape was actually disturbed to the extent of a chuckle.

"Probably, most probably," said he, becoming abruptly serious, "you never robbed a cache before, sonny. You ken shoot as many of yer kind as ye please and still be a great gentleman. But there's just one thing in Death Valley as is more dangerous than the side-winder's sting; and that's this here thing what we're doing-robbin' a cache. So I reckon the fewer love letters we leave behind the better. And what's more, if we could buy water, we wouldn't be stealin' it. Is it take it or leave it? Sonny, sence we picked you up at the Furnace Creek Ranch, yesterday, you have guzzled more of this here water than I could drink in a week. That's why we're shy. I hain't said nothing, and' I don't care about gettin' your imagination riled up; I might say that if you wus to go without water for three hours, you bein' green, might cause considerable trouble."

The man in the red shirt was gazing into Death Valley-a new sensation, something unfelt before. The heat waves rose from that place to the extent of obscuring the Panamint Mountains far away to the south, on the other side. His gaze turned to the browns, yellows and bright reds of the Funeral Mountains; smears of blood to him. The entire distant range was spectral in its apparent nearness; no green, nothing but bright color and waste; and he winced.

The words of advice produced the desired effect, and a quart of the water was

left in the cache for Madison, did he ever turn up at that place again.

As the sun neared the horizon, still glaring death at the travelers, the little procession was crossing the roughest portion of the Death Valley Slope. Boxcanyons open up on the right with hundreds of feet of solid rock towering straight up. The mouth of each canyon is reached only to discover a perpendicular drop-off into the head of another.

The young man in the rear had, a dozen times, observed landmarks ahead and had discovered each time, with failing heart, an utterly strange landscape in his rear. A crow was following the last burro, and, when the train stopped, it stopped and perched upon a rock and throated out a dismal "caw." Presently, the one crow had grown into two. And again they croaked their call.

During the afternoon the old prospectors in the lead had moistened their lips but twice. The red-shirted man had sated his insane thirst. His companions had warned him with voice and significant glance, but his thirst had steadily increased, and one-half an hour ago the last drop in the canteen had moistened his swelling tongue and fired his brain. He grew angry at the crows-three now.

The leader stopped to tighten a cinch. The red shirted man sat on a rock until it burned into him, and then came to his feet with a jump, and turned upon the three crows-now there were six-six black demons had crystallized out of the clear and were looking at him.

"You damned carrion devils, take that." He hurled a rock at them. They fluttered around in small circles, cawed and croaked, and settled down again twenty feet from him, and looked upon him with patiently wise beady black eyes.

"I wouldn't get excited," observed the leader, exchanging a meaning look with his partner; "they're some playful, but they don't mean nothing."

"Do you know where we are?" asked the excited man in a low voice, at the same time pulling his hat over his eyes.

"I reckon we're nowhere in particular, but in general about seven miles west of Greenwater in a straight line, or twentyfive miles the way men go; we're also about thirty-five miles from Johnny's Sid

ing, and this here repartee ain't a-goin' to bring us any nearer where we're goin'." For five minutes nothing was heard except the crunch of gravel and the occasional caw of a crow. For some minutes past the man trailing after the rear burro was uncertain in his gait; occasionally he stumbled, then his face flushed and paled by turns. His tongue was swollen. His head rolled loosely on his neck and his knees seemed not quite able to carry his weight. He stopped, reeled and slid on a flat rock to a sitting posture and gazed wildly about.

"My God! I'm finished! I'm done!"

He buried his head between his knees and abrupt dry sobs, one after another racked his frame.

The leader turned, eyed the figure philosophically and lit his pipe for the twentieth time within the last ten minutes. He was in no wise astonished at this sudden break-down. He had been expecting something of the kind long ere this.

"It's all right, sonny," as he picked up the sobbing man's hat and squashed it roughly down on his head, "you'll live to laugh at this damned hole. Just kind of let your mind wander over 'pertier' spots than this and we'll mosey along."

His partner prospector was leaning against a rock, chewing his mustache and was seemingly unconscious of the little scene in the rear. He tacitly consented to leave the case entirely in the hands of the leader; he yawned, swore and kicked at the lead burro which evidently now thought it time to lie down.

"This galoot," said the leader, addressing his partner, "has got a bad case of 'dyspepsy,' and says he's goin' to stick right here." Then turning to the young man: "It's all right, sonny; we ain't goin' to leave ye." His words were as near to a coo as a sourdough could assume. "Buck up there, and we'll perambulate up this here gulch an' see if we can find a water tank, an' see how you'll feel by this time."

News of water in the near vicinity revived the thirsting man sufficiently to nerve him to another attempt, and the company turned into a box-canyon. The sides were of a grayish limestone and perpendicular; towering hundreds of feet overhead. The canyon bottom was between twenty and twenty-five feet wide

and smooth as a floor; polished and barren of sand or rocks of any size. In these canyons, in the rainy season the torrents created by the sudden storms sweep all before them. Deep down in this sepulchre there was but one outlet. The rays of the sun reach the lower levels, but a few moments each day, and the crevices act as natural water tanks. The water, however, after a few days standing, as in all desert pools, becomes stagnant, turns greenishred, and from the pools come the smells of putrifaction and exhalations of deadly miasmas.

It was before such a puddle that the thirst-stricken man fell on all fours and prepared to gorge. The first taste, however, turned him sick, but at the same time quenched his fear. The shade was a relief from the burning sun. He rolled over by the side of the pool and closed his eyes.

His companions were sitting upon a slight shelf of rock smoking and talking. In the meantime the burros had all but emptied the pool, and as best they could with their heavy packs, had lain down. The air was cooling. The aroma of tobacco smoke and the sight of the poor animals at rest made it almost comfortable. The sun was below the horizon and dusk was gathering about. A mist, peculiar to the desert valley, floated up the

canyon.

The tenderfoot propped himself upon his elbows and addressed his fellows:

"Why can't we camp here for the night? I somehow feel safer between two walls, and besides I'm all in, and if you go you must leave me behind."

"We could camp here," answered the leader, "but five minutes after the rain begins, if it should storm to-night, six foot of water will be tearing down this place 'hell bent for election." "

"The sky is quite clear, not a cloud in sight, and this is not the rainy season. And then, we could make the quarter mile to the mouth of the canyon before the stream could become swift enough to lap us up if there were any danger of rain, and I do not think there is."

"All right, sonny, you're the boss, but my advice is agin it-strong." Then he brought a burro to its feet with a sharp kick and proceeded to unpack,

Later the moon rose as large as a barn, far overhead, over the crest of the cliff. It cast its mellow light ever farther and farther down into the deep hole; and the black shadow against the side of the canyon decreased and decreased. And the silence was deep. Was this Death Valley, this cool, soft world of mysterious light and shadow?

And as the moon traveled, it uncovered three figures wrapped in sleep, in their canvas bags, in the bottom of the deep black hole.

A shoe was filled with the soft light, and a robber desert mouse, a soft gray thing, with a long pink tale, was gnawing at one of the straggly laces. The moon rose to its zenith, and the little mouse continued its busy gnawing at the shoe lace. That and the heavy breathing of men and beasts was all that broke the stillness.

Suddenly, far above in the empyrean, a crow croaked its "caw," and the cry echoed up the canyon. The call was repeated, and it became fainter and fainter, and finally it died away altogether, and then the stillness was more oppressive than before, and the mouse worked on and

on.

The mist from the valley thickened. Like a phantom bat with outstretched wings an ominous black cloud had cut the moon in twain and far across the valley the Panamint Mountains were illumined by sharp flashes of lightning; save for this, the blackness was complete.

Deep, deep down on the floor of the abyss a mouse was knawing at a sleeper's shoe. And its little pink eyes shone as it sported with the lace.

*

The Death Valley storm comes suddenly and rages fiercely; a drop of rain, then a deluge. Then the glaring, inexorable, bright sunshine, a procession of days, unchanging days.

A wild flash of lightning-aroundeverywhere, then a terrific crash of thunder, bounding and rebounding from wall to wall, from chasm to chasm. Another flash and yet another, followed by the roar and tumult of a thousand echoes. As if all the artillery from time immemorial were wildly charging down-down into

the nowhere. A slight sprinkling and then sheets of rain.

At the first clap of thunder the three sleepers in the deep hole awoke and lived years in the instant before they could jump to their feet. There was a succession of blinding flashes and a mad rush for the mouth of the canyon; men, burros, water, everything, rushing for the mouth of the canyon, spurred on by the tremendous thunder claps and awe-inspiring flashes of liquidly blue and white lightning.

Then a little stream picked up a shoe, and, as it floated it, bobbed it up and down.

The red-shirted man forgot his thirst in the wild melee, and the fatherly leader his dignity. Now and then, the lightning guided their footsteps, and when that failed, the towering walls did in rude reminder. The stream gathered volume and speed.

The young man lost his footing and was dashed into a crevice. He made a weak, desperate effort to climb upward. The ends of his fingers were cut and bleeding. He slipped back into the clutch of the flood, then, in mere desperation, clutched at the blackness. His hand came

in contact with a ledge. The current pulled him downward, but he held on, in frantic strength, and drew himself up. on a narrow shelf, only wide enough for a portion of his body to hang there, and there he clung.

The water rose and dashed along its crooked course, carrying with it rocks and sand, churning up the waters and denuding and polishing the floor of the boxcanyon.

The moon shone upon the Panamint Mountains across the valley and cast a long shadow into this deep quiet hole.

Outside the mouth of the canyon the recent flood had lodged a steel-shod shoe, upright, upon a rock-it was just balancing-and a cool breeze caressed the mousebitten lace. A black crow sat by, wisely watching the shoe, and cawed.

CHAPTER II.

What Happened at the Greenwater Club. From the Amargosa Siding to Greenwater the distance is fifty-four miles,