And Rudolph found neither threats nor entreaties of
any avail.
He started out of the town, turning toward the south and west.
Before him there stretched days of lonely traveling through the
sand and cactus of the desert, of blistering sun and cold nights,
of anxious searches for water-holes. It was because of the
water-holes that he headed southwest, for such as they were they
lay in tiny hidden oases in the canyons. Almost as soon as he
left the town he was in the desert; a detached ranch, a suggestion
of a road, a fenced-in cotton-field or two, an irrigation ditch, and
then - sand.
He was soft from months of inaction, from the cactus whisky of
Mexico, too, that ate into a man like a corrosive acid. But he
went on steadily, putting behind him as rapidly as possible the
border, and the girls who had laughed at him. He traveled by a
pointed mountain which cut off the stars at the horizon, and as
the miles behind him increased, in spite of his growing fatigue
his spirits rose.
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