[The Innocents Abroad Part 3 of 6 by Mark Twain]@TWC D-Link bookThe Innocents Abroad Part 3 of 6 CHAPTER XXVII 5/31
Still, this mildest-mannered man that ever was, had not complained.
We started across at eight in the morning, pushing through sand that had no bottom; toiling all day long by the wrecks of a thousand wagons, the skeletons of ten thousand oxen; by wagon-tires enough to hoop the Washington Monument to the top, and ox-chains enough to girdle Long Island; by human graves; with our throats parched always, with thirst; lips bleeding from the alkali dust; hungry, perspiring, and very, very weary--so weary that when we dropped in the sand every fifty yards to rest the horses, we could hardly keep from going to sleep--no complaints from Oliver: none the next morning at three o'clock, when we got across, tired to death. Awakened two or three nights afterward at midnight, in a narrow canon, by the snow falling on our faces, and appalled at the imminent danger of being "snowed in," we harnessed up and pushed on till eight in the morning, passed the "Divide" and knew we were saved.
No complaints. Fifteen days of hardship and fatigue brought us to the end of the two hundred miles, and the Judge had not complained.
We wondered if any thing could exasperate him.
We built a Humboldt house.
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