He was actually afraid to part the drooping willows to enter the
little cool, shady path that led to the spring. Then, suddenly
seized by suspense, he ran the rest of the way.
He was just in time to see the last of the water. It seemed to sink
as in quicksand. The shape of the hole had changed. The tremendous
force of the blast in the adjoining field had obstructed or diverted
the underground stream of water.
Belding's never-failing spring had been ruined. What had made
this little plot of ground green and sweet and fragrant was now
no more. Belding's first feeling was for the pity of it. The
pale Ajo lilies would bloom no more under those willows. The
willows themselves would soon wither and die. He thought how many
times in the middle of hot summer nights he had come down to the
spring to drink. Never again!
Suddenly he thought of Blanco Diablo. How the great white
thoroughbred had loved this spring! Belding straightened up and
looked with tear-blurred eyes out over the waste of desert to the
west. Never a day passed that he had not thought of the splendid
horse; but this moment, with its significant memory, was doubly
keen, and there came a dull pang in his breast.
"Diablo will never drink here again!" muttered Belding.
The loss of Blanco Diablo, though admitted and mourned by Belding,
had never seemed quite real until this moment.
The pall of dust drifting over him, the din of the falling water up
at the dam, diverted Belding's mind to the Chases.
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