No one who has ever
felt the extreme of thirst can imagine the distress, the dispair, which
it brings. I can find no words, no way to express it so others can
understand.
The moon gave us so much light that we decided we would start on our
course, and get as far as we could before the hot sun came out, and so
we went on slowly and carefully in the partial darkness, the only hope
left to us being that our strength would hold out till we could get to
the shining snow on the great mountain before us. We reached the foot of
the range we were descending about sunrise. There was here a wide wash
from the snow mountain, down which some water had sometime run after a
big storm, and had divided into little rivulets only reaching out a
little way before they had sunk into the sand.
We had no idea we could now find any water till we at least got very
near the snow, and as the best way to reach it we turned up the wash
although the course was nearly to the north. The course was up a gentle
grade and seemed quite sandy and not easy to travel. It looked as if
there was an all day walk before us, and it was quite a question if we
could live long enough to make the distance. There were quite strong
indications that the water had run here not so very long ago, and we
could trace the course of the little streams round among little sandy
islands. A little stunted brush grew here but it was so brittle that the
stems would break as easy as an icicle.
In order to not miss a possible bit of water we separated and agreed
upon a general course, and that if either one found water he should fire
his gun as a signal.
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