sake of gold, always provided that the gold is far enough off, and hard enough to get? Nearer at hand and easier won, it is not half so attractive.
Uncle Billy Thompson and myself had taken a "short cut" across the desert from San Gorgonio Pass, eastward toward the Colorado, to avoid undesirable company; we lost the trail, and wandered on the red-hot desert sands, and in the sun-baked adobe mountains, without water, until our tongues parched in our mouths so that we dared not talk; and before our longing eyes the leafless palo verde shrubs turned to lofty palm trees, waving their green leaves in tropic breezes; and the mirage changed scattered volcanic rocks into great cities, whose long, level streets were lined with rows of palaces, such as the good Haroun Al Raschid raised in the city of the caliphs. By one of those freaks of fortune which some men call "miracles," others "special Providence," others "lucky chances"—and for which we thanked God in the silence of our hearts without stopping to call it anything—we had found a little deposit of pure water under a rock, left a day or two before by a cloud-burst, which had torn a channel like that of some great river, for twenty miles through the gravelly sands of the desert, and disappeared like a dream, leaving no other trace behind—had shared the life-giving element with our famishing horses, taken rest and new heart, and traveling on, passing the spot where others less fortunate had lain down in despair and died, had reached a hospitable camp, and been saved at last. We had journeyed thence in safety at last to the land of the accursed
