Beyond was a forest of
silver leaves--an olive orchard.
"A Mission!" exclaimed Roldan, and even Adan sprang to his feet and
marched westward with some enthusiasm. But alas! although they trudged
with dogged persistence for fully a league, striving to forget the
gnawing at their vitals in the exquisite prospect filling the eye, the
lake seemed to march ahead of them, in perfect time with their weary
feet. Suddenly the two boys paused and faced each other.
"This accursed desert is bewitched," said Roldan. His face was white,
but more with anger than fear; for the first time in his life he
realised the helplessness of man when at the mercy of nature, and he did
not like the sensation. He had a strong, and by this time, well
developed instinct to govern, to bend others to his will, and he swore
now that he would walk out of this desert unharmed if only for the
pleasure of cheating a force mightier than himself. He turned and looked
at the sun.
"We have been going in a wrong direction," he said. "That lake has been
shifting gradually toward the southwest, and taken us nearly a league
out of our course. The first thing we know we will be in Baja
California, where there is nothing but deserts, and they are all on
mountain tops.
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