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Adam could not for the moment safely trust himself to speak. An, well, I guess
Ive done my bestfor you.
Itsclose found him so tired he could scarcely stand,
and with gnawing hungergrowing worse.
When he ran around the corner of thicket
to his campsite he did see afire.
Hungernow beset him with all its terrors
magnified. Adam could not for the moment safely trust himself to speak. If
hecould find the nest of the bees that were working here he would
findhoney.
Then the girl laid him back, spread the blanket high, and left him.
Adam slapped Jinny on the haunch and started her westward. Adam set fire to the
tree and smoked the bees out. With steps that no longer dragged Adam began his
descent of the canyonslope.
With violent start of consciousness, with
fearfuluncertainty, he raised himself to peer around.
With violent start of
consciousness, with fearfuluncertainty, he raised himself to peer around.
Adam
rather repelled thanassisted his nurse, but his antagonism was purely physical
andinvoluntary.
Presently he made out that he reclined under one of
thepalm-thatched roofs.
The dusky desert maiden had little instinctive
vanitiesthat contact with him developed.
Soon he would fall and die,
besun-dried and blow away like powdered leather on the desert
wind.
Darknessovertook him and he was compelled to make dry camp. Then an
exceedingly good stroke of fortune befell him inthat he killed a rabbit. He
followed thrill from place to place, all over the oasis,until he lost sight of
them.
Gradually his hopes, so new and strange, subsided.
As a boy he had been
anadept at constructing figure-four traps. Lizards, rattlesnakes, rats, ground
squirrels rustled from hisstealthy steps. The hours flew, the day ended, night
intervened, and another dawn broke. His strength revived, but also his
pains.
And with ithad passed the flashing of his intelligence. Queer how those
smoke trees fool afellow, he said. He followed thrill from place to place, all
over the oasis,until he lost sight of them.
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