Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 4, 1926 — page 150: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

460 kicked at the bronc’s flank viciously. He lashed at its head with the bight of his reins. He howled madly at it. The cliffs were much farther away than either of the two riders had thought. But Ladley kept up a furious lashing and howl- ing. His whole frame was atremble with eagerness, his voice high, shaking, piercing. The cliffs loomed high; the red mist sur- rounded them as the horse plowed heavily through the alkali. ‘“Where is it? cried. “Over there!” the girl cried tauntingly. “Can’t you see it? Can’t you hear it? There’s a spring guzzling out of the cliff.” “Ves, I see it!” he screamed trium- phantly, heading for the receding strip of blue. The horse stumbled along. It was too slow a gait for the frantic man. He leaped to the ground, and, still holding the reins, staggered on toward the base of the cliff. He had no fear of the deep arroyos in the cliff’s side. There might be a posse of fifty men hiding there. But what did that matter? It was the last thing than con- cerned kim. When within fifty yards of the cliff, running, stumbling, reeling on, he had his first intimation of what. was happening. The desert was playing the grimmest and most hideous joke it ever plays on its lost wanderers. . There was a lagoon, sky-blue and shim mering; but he saw, or thought he saw, the edge receding like the quick recession of a breaker on the sand. But it was not exactly like a comber returning to the sea; for instead of leaving the sand black and shining in the sunlight, it left it dry. His mind shut out this horrible truth. He would reach that lagoon. He would chase it. He would run after it, even though he pursued it to the shores of hell. The horse, responding to the yanking of the reins, and too exhausted to rear or fight, loped after the staggering man. The girl in the saddle looked down with a calm, inexorable look at the pitiful mortal below, a look that was at once serene in its tri- umph and yet overcast with pain. She herself was tortured with thirst. But I’ve lost it!” Ladley ‘ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. her own torture served only to kindle a strange sympathy for the miserable wretch reeling and gibbering down there, on the sand. She saw him run—as if blind—to the cliff. He came up sharp against a granite bowlder, and threw his arms about it. His hands dug into it as if he believed the lost lagoon were imprisoned there, and that it might gush out in response to his cries, like the Scriptural version of water gushing out of the cliffside in the wilderness in response to the staff of Moses. His nails clutched at the obdurate gran- ite; he tore at it; his fingers bled; his strength gave out. Groaning, he sank to the ground. | The girl dismounted and stood over him. He lay there, staring up*at her, licking his dry red mouth and whimpering. ‘Tell ’em to come and get me. Bring anybody. I don’t care. I’m through.” The sight of the tortured burning thing at her feet was more than she could bear. She had won her great fight; there was no more doubt about that. To go on torturing any more was like kicking a man who was down. She took her canteen—the canteen which all this time, unknown to Ladley, had car- ried water. There was not much water left in it, perhaps enough to save his life and hers. She yearned, like an addict yearning for his drug, to take what there was left of that water. But how could she drink, with that man lying there, groaning and whimpering, and begging her to give him over to his enemies who would hang him? She knelt down beside him and held up his head. “ Take a swig or two of this, hombre,” she said. “ Leave a swig for me.” When the lukewarm liquid touched his raw lips he straightened up, his two shaking hands gripped it, his fingers rooted about it, snatching it fiercely from her hold. There was not much. He emptied it all in a guip. But it was an elixir to him. His eyes flamed. He looked up at the girl, and the sudden change of his face, the re- turn of that blood to his eyes as if a new life-giving venom were coursing through his Micboo (C SS (C@) (C@)