Bob Hampton of Placer - Page 20/205

"I fairly shake from hunger," she exclaimed, almost angrily, "and am

terribly tired and sore, but I reckon I can make it if I 've got to."

There was nothing more said between them. Like two automatons, they

started off across the parched grass, the heat waves rising and falling

as they stumbled forward. Neither realized until then how thoroughly

that hard climb up the rocks, the strain of continued peril, and the

long abstinence from food had sapped their strength, yet to remain

where they were meant certain death; all hope found its centre amid

those distant beckoning trees. Mechanically the girl gathered back her

straying tresses, and tied them with a rag torn from her frayed skirt.

Hampton noted silently how heavy and sunken her eyes were; he felt a

dull pity, yet could not sufficiently arouse himself from the lethargy

of exhaustion to speak. His body seemed a leaden weight, his brain a

dull, inert mass; nothing was left him but an unreasoning purpose, the

iron will to press on across that desolate plain, which already reeled

and writhed before his aching eyes.

No one can explain later how such deeds are ever accomplished; how the

tortured soul controls physical weakness, and compels strained sinews

to perform the miracle of action when all ambition has died. Hampton

surely must have both seen and known, for he kept his direction, yet

never afterwards did he regain any clear memory of it. Twice she fell

heavily, and the last time she lay motionless, her face pressed against

the short grass blades. He stood looking down upon her, his head

reeling beneath the hot rays of the sun, barely conscious of what had

occurred, yet never becoming totally dead to his duty. Painfully he

stooped, lifted the limp, slender figure against his shoulder, and went

straggling forward, as uncertain in steps as a blind man, all about him

stretching the dull, dead desolation of the plain. Again and again he

sank down, pillowing his eyes from the pitiless sun glare; only to

stagger upright once more, ever bending lower and lower beneath his

unconscious burden.