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The lonely station of Manzanita stood out, sharp and unsightly, in the keen February sunlight. A mile away in a dip of the desert, lay the town, a sorry sprawl of frame buildings, patternless save for the one main street, which promptly lost itself at either end in a maze of cholla, prickly pear, and the lovely, golden-glowing roseo.
His friend ran toward him, forgetting the revolver that lay in its holster under the live oak. Every moment he expected to see Mac jump up, but the figure stretched beside the cholla never moved. Flandrau felt the muscles round his heart tighten. He had seen sudden death before, but never had it come so near home. A bullet sent up a spurt of dust in front of him, another just on the left.
Billie wondered why, if this were the camp of the outlaws, no other sound broke the stillness. Closer, inch by inch, making the most of every bunch of yucca and cholla, the officer slowly crept. The figure of a man lay in the sand, the head resting on a folded slicker.
The summit was flat, except for some rounded domes of mountains, and there the deadly cholla cactus grew not in profusion, but enough to prove the dread of the Mexicans for this species of desert plant. It was a small bush, with cones like a pine cone in shape, growing in clusters, and over stems and cones were fine steel-pointed needles with invisible hooks at the ends.
I found the mouth and feet of the poor animal full of the spines of the cholla cactus, a growth which is simply a mass of fine thorns. This cactus grows in patches, and when the dead clusters fall to the ground the spines stick to everything touching them.
Weak and dizzy herself, she rose and laid her hand on John's, every maternal instinct in her stirring and speaking in her gray eyes. "Come, dear boy, we mustn't give up so easily." John lifted the little hand to his cheek. "I won't give up," he said uncertainly. "I'll take care of you, honey girl!" "Come on, then!" said Rhoda. "You see that queer bunch of cholla yonder?
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