Before him lay the fulness of life again.
Mexico City was a stake worth gambling for. He was gambling, he
knew. He had put up his life, and his opponent was thirst. He
knew that, well enough, too, and the figure rather amused him.
"Playing against that, all right," he muttered. He paused and
turned around. The sun had lifted over the rim of the desert, a
red disc which turned the gleaming white alkali patches to rose.
"By God," he said, "that's the ante, is it - A red chip!"
A caravan of mules was coming up from the head of the Gulf of
California. It moved in a cloud of alkali dust and sand, its
ore-sacks coated white. The animals straggled along, wandering out
of the line incessantly and thrust back into place by muleteers who
cracked long whips and addressed them vilely.
At a place where a small rock placed on another marked a side trail
to water, the caravan turned and moved toward the mountains. Close
as they appeared, the outfit was three hours getting to the foot
hills.
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