We must cast back for a mile or two; but it can not make much difference." "Through the dust and the sand ?" I began to say; but a glance from him stopped my murmuring.

And the next thing I can call to mind must have happened a long time afterward.
Beyond all doubt, in this desolation, my father gave his life for mine.
I did not know it at the time, nor had the faintest dream of it, being so young and weary-worn, and obeying him by instinct.

It is a fearful thing to think of--now that I can think of it--but to save my own little worthless life I must have drained every drop of water from his flat half-gallon jar.

The water was hot and the cork-hole sandy, and I grumbled even while drinking it; and what must my father (who was dying all the while for a drop, but never took one)--what must he have thought of me?
But he never said a word, so far as I remember; and that makes it all the worse for me.

We had strayed away into a dry, volcanic district of the mountains, where all the snow-rivers run out quite early; and of natural springs there was none forth-coming.