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For the Panamints are set on edge and shed rain like a roof, the water all flowing off at once; and when they strike a canyon, after rushing down the converging gulches, there is nothing that can withstand their violence.
Twist and turn as he would he could not get around it and at last he climbed to its summit. The sun was setting in purple and fire behind the black shoulder of the Panamints and like a path of gold it marked out the way, the only way to cross the Valley.
They appointed Manley, the young hunter, and an ox-driver named John Rogers for the venture, and the pair set out across the Panamints just north of Telescope Peak with the beef from an ox in their knapsacks, while the others sat down to await their return or death.
I lay awake a while and slept with very little covering. Toward dawn the gale died away. I was up at five-thirty. The morning broke fine, clear, balmy. A flare of pale gleaming light over the Funeral Range heralded the sunrise. The tips of the higher snow-capped Panamints were rose colored, and below them the slopes were red. The bulk of the range showed dark.
They killed some of their oxen at this point and divided the meat there was so little of it that although the men were now very weak two of them were able to carry the beef from an animal. Then they started out on foot across the sand dunes toward the Panamints. Most of them still believed that feed and water lay just beyond those heights.
Far from the north it came, when the season was right and the cloudbursts swept the Grape-Vines and the White mountains; the Panamints to the west gave down water from winter snows that gathered on Telescope Peak; and every ravine of the somber Funeral Range was gutted by the rush of forgotten waters.
They had a scout that knows that country from the southern end o' the Panamints to Lost Valley. Oh, they went heeled; but it's a big job and takes time. Still, they oughta be showin' up by now." Orr Tweet heaved a great sigh. "Jo's simply forgotten all about me," he said mournfully. "Heine, I don't mind tellin' you but if somethin' don't happen pretty soon one Tweet goes up Salt Creek.
I'm sure slow in the head, but I reckon I've learned my lesson never go up against the other man's game. Old Eells is a lawyer and I tried to beat him at law. We've switched the deal now and he can play my game a while hide-and-seek, up in them high peaks." He waved his hand in the direction of the Panamints and winked at her exultantly.
The first October storm put a crown on Telescope Peak and tipped the lesser Panamints with snow, but still Wilhelmina waited and Wunpost did not return from his mysterious trip "inside." The time was not ripe for his notable revenge and he had forgotten Jail Canyon and her.
That evening the strongest of their number reached the summit of the Panamints and looked down the western side where they had thought to find that fertile valley which the Williams map had promised leading to the north. They saw dead mountain ranges and dried lake floors like those through which they had been traveling for months. The Mohave Desert lay in front of them.
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