He burned his
hands and knees. He grew hot and wet and winded. His heart
thumped so that it hurt, and there were instants when his sight
was blurred. When at last he had toiled to where the Yaqui sat
awaiting him upon the rim of that great wall, it was none too soon.
Gale lay back and rested for a while without note of anything
except the blue sky. Then he sat up. He was amazed to find that
after that wonderful climb he was only a thousand feet or so above
the valley. Judged by the nature of his effort, he would have
said he had climbed a mile. The village lay beneath him, with its
new adobe structures and tents and buildings in bright contrast with
the older habitations. He saw the green alfalfa fields, and
Belding's white horses, looking very small and motionless. He
pleased himself by imagining he could pick out Blanco Sol. Then
his gaze swept on to the river.
Indeed, he realized now why some one had named it Forlorn River.
Even at this season when it was full of water it had a forlorn
aspect. It was doomed to fail out there on the desert--doomed
never to mingle with the waters of the Gulf. It wound away down
the valley, growing wider and shallower, encroaching more and more
on the gray flats, until it disappeared on its sad journey toward
Sonoyta. That vast shimmering, sun-governed waste recognized its
life only at this flood season, and was already with parched tongue
and insatiate fire licking and burning up its futile waters.
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