"How about money?" Rudolph inquired.
The German shrugged his shoulders.
"You will not need money in the desert," he said. "And you haf spent
much money here, on the women. You should have safed it."
"I was told you would give me money."
But the German shook his head.
"You viii find money in Mexico City, if you get there," he said,
cryptically. And Rudolph found neither threats nor entreaties of any
avail.
He started out of the town, turning toward the south and west. Before
him there stretched days of lonely traveling through the sand and cactus
of the desert, of blistering sun and cold nights, of anxious searches
for water-holes. It was because of the water-holes that he headed
southwest, for such as they were they lay in tiny hidden oases in the
canyons. Almost as soon as he left the town he was in the desert; a
detached ranch, a suggestion of a road, a fenced-in cotton-field or two,
an irrigation ditch, and then--sand.
He was soft from months of inaction, from the cactus whisky of Mexico,
too, that ate into a man like a corrosive acid. But he went on steadily,
putting behind him as rapidly as possible the border, and the girls who
had laughed at him. He traveled by a pointed mountain which cut off the
stars at the horizon, and as the miles behind him increased, in spite of
his growing fatigue his spirits rose. Before him lay the fulness of life
again. Mexico City was a stake worth gambling for. He was gambling, he
knew. He had put up his life, and his opponent was thirst. He knew that,
well enough, too, and the figure rather amused him.
"Playing against that, all right," he muttered. He paused and turned
around. The sun had lifted over the rim of the desert, a red disc which
turned the gleaming white alkali patches to rose. "By God," he said,
"that's the ante, is it--A red chip!"
A caravan of mules was coming up from the head of the Gulf of
California. It moved in a cloud of alkali dust and sand, its ore-sacks
coated white. The animals straggled along, wandering out of the line
incessantly and thrust back into place by muleteers who cracked long
whips and addressed them vilely.
At a place where a small rock placed on another marked a side trail to
water, the caravan turned and moved toward the mountains. Close as they
appeared, the outfit was three hours getting to the foot hills. There
was a low meadow now, covered with pale green grass. Quail scurried away
under the mesquite bushes, stealthily whistling, and here and there the
two stones still marked the way.