The
weight of the gold in his clothes bent his shoulders over.
As we went on the country gradually got to be more mountainous,
and, as we were steadily growing weaker, it did seem things were
piling up on us. The eighth day we ran out of the fishhook
cactus, and, being on a high promontory, were out of touch with
the sea. For the first time my tongue began to swell a little.
The cactus had kept me from that before. Denton must have been
in the same fix, for he looked at me and raised one eyebrow kind
of humorous.
Schwartz was having a good deal of difficulty to navigate. I
will say for him that he had done well, but now I could see that
his strength was going on him in spite of himself. He knew it,
all right, for when we rested that day he took all the gold coins
and spread them in a row, and counted them, and put them back in
his pocket, and then all of a sudden snatched out two handfuls
and threw them as far as he could.
"Too heavy," he muttered, but that was all he could bring himself
to throw away.
All that night we wandered high in the air. I guess we tried to
keep a general direction, but I don't know. Anyway, along late,
but before moonrise--she was now on the wane--I came to, and
found myself looking over the edge of a twenty-foot drop.
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