About this time
Denton ran across some fishhook cactus, which we cut up and
chewed. They have a sticky wet sort of inside, which doesn't
quench your thirst any, but helps to keep you from drying up and
blowing away.
All that day we plugged along as per usual. It was main hard
work, and we got to that state where things are disagreeable, but
mechanical. Strange to say, Schwartz kept in the lead. It
seemed to me at the time that he was using more energy than the
occasion called for--just as man runs faster before he comes to
the giving-out point. However, the hours went by, and he
didn't seem to get any more tired than the rest of us.
We kept a sharp lookout for anything to eat, but there was
nothing but lizards and horned toads. Later we'd have been glad
of them, but by that time we'd got out of their district. Night
came. Just at sundown we took another wallow in the surf, and
chewed some more fishhook cactus. When the moon came up we went
on.
I'm not going to tell you how dead beat we got. We were pretty
tough and strong, for all of us had been used to hard living, but
after the third day without anything to eat and no water to
drink, it came to be pretty hard going.
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