The Desert Valley

In the dusk a pack-horse crested a low-lying sand-ridge put up its head and sniffed pushed forward eagerly its nostrils twitching as it turned a little more toward the north going straight toward the water-hole. The pack was slipping as far to one side as it had listed to the other half an hour ago; in the restraining rope there were a dozen intricate knots where one would have amply sufficed. The horse broke into a trot blazing its own trail through the mesquite; a parcel slipped; the slack rope grew slacker because of the subsequent readjust-ment; half a dozen bundles dropped after the first. A voice thin and irritable shouted 'Whoa!' and the man in turn was briefly outlined against the pale sky as he scrambled up the ridge. He was a little man and plainly weary; he walked as though his boots hurt him; he carried a wide new hat in one hand; the skin was peeling from his blistered face. From his other hand trailed a big handkerchief. He was perhaps fifty or sixty. He called 'Whoa!' again and made what haste he could after his horse.