Part 11 (1/2)

now?”

”Yes, Uncle Abner says there is He says they've got it in New York, and they put it on country people's eyes and show theit them, and then when they rub the salve on the other eye the other oes off with their railroads Here's the treasure-hill noay!”

We landed, but it warn't as interesting as I thought it was going to be, because we couldn't find the place where they went in to git the treasure Still, it was plenty interesting enough, just to see thehappened Jim said he wou'dn't 'a' missed it for three dollars, and I felt the sa as any was the way Too straight and find a little hump like that and tell it in a minute from ato help hi and his own natural sether, but couldn't make out how he done it He had the best head on hie, to e Washi+ngton I bet you it would 'a'

crowded either of THEM to find that hill, with all their gifts, but it warn't nothing to Toer on it as easy as you could pick a nigger out of a bunch of angels

We found a pond of salt water close by and scraped up a raft of salt around the edges, and loaded up the lion's skin and the tiger's so as they would keep till Jim could tan the along for a day or two, and then just as the full round on the other side of the desert, we see a string of little black figgerssilver face You could see them as plain as if they was painted on the moon with ink It was another caravan We cooled down our speed and tagged along after it, just to have co our way It was a rattler, that caravan, and awhen the sun co shadders of the casesin procession We never went very near it, because we knowed better now than to act like that and scare people's caayest outfit you ever see, for rich clothes and nobby style Some of the chiefs rode on droo plunging along like they was on stilts, and they rock the man that is on them pretty violent and churn up his dinner considerable, I bet you, but they ood time, and a camel ain't nowheres with the the ain about the un to look very curious First it kind of turned to brass, and then to copper, and after that it begun to look like a blood-red ball, and the air got hot and close, and pretty soon all the sky in the west darkened up and looked thick and foggy, but fiery and dreadful--like it looks through a piece of red glass, you know We looked down and see a big confusion going on in the caravan, and a rushi+ng every which way like they was scared; and then they all flopped down flat in the sand and laid there perfectly still

Pretty soon we see so all, and reached from the Desert up into the sky and hid the sun, and it was co like the nation, too Then a little faint breeze struck us, and then it coainst our faces and sting like fire, and To out:

”It's a sand-storm--turn your backs to it!”

We done it; and in another ainst us by the shovelful, and the air was so thick with it we couldn't see a thing In fiveon the lockers buried up to the chin in sand, and only our heads out and could hardly breathe

Then the stor off across the desert, awful to look at, I tell you We dug ourselves out and looked down, and where the caravan was before there wasn't anything but just the sand ocean now, and all still and quiet All them people and camels was smothered and dead and buried--buried under ten foot of sand, we reckoned, and Toht be years before the wind uncovered them, and all that time their friends wouldn't ever knohat become of that caravan Tom said:

”NOW we knohat it was that happened to the people we got the swords and pistols from”

Yes, sir, that was just it It was as plain as day now They got buried in a sand-storet at theain until they was dried to leather and warn't fit to eat It seemed to me we had felt as sorry for them poor people as a person could for anybody, and as mournful, too, but as ood deal harder

You see, the others was total strangers, and we never got to feeling acquainted with them at all, except, irl, but it was different with this last caravan We was huvvering around the real friendly with them, and acquainted I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them Just so with these We kind of liked the with theer we traveled with theot used to their ways, the better and better we liked theladder as that we run across them We had come to know some of the about theot so familiar and sociable that we even dropped the Miss and Mister and just used their plain names without any handle, and it did not see Of course, it wasn't their own naive them There was Mr Elexander Robinson and Miss Adaline Robinson, and Colonel Jacob McDougal and Miss Harryet McDougal, and Judge Jere chiefs reat turbans and siul, and their faood, and like the, any more, but only Elleck, and Addy, and Jake, and Hattie, and Jerry, and Buck, and so on

And you know the more you join in with people in their joys and their sorrows, the more nearer and dearer they come to be to you Noarn't cold and indifferent, the way ht down friendly and sociable, and took a chance in everything that was going, and the caravan could depend on us to be on hand every time, it didn't make no difference what it was

When they caht over them, ten or twelve hundred feet up in the air When they et a meal, we et ourn, and it made it ever sothat night, and Buck and Addy got ot ourselves up in the very starchiest of the professor's duds for the blow-out, and when they danced we jined in and shook a foot up there

But it is sorrow and trouble that brings you the nearest, and it was a funeral that done it with us It was next , just in the still dawn We didn't know the diseased, and he warn't in our set, but that never ed to the caravan, and that was enough, and there warn't no more sincerer tears shed over him than the ones we dripped on hih

Yes, parting with this caravan was much more bitterer than it was to part with theers, and been dead so long, anyway We had knowed these in their lives, and was fond of theht before our faces while as looking, and leave us so loneso desert, it did hurt so, and ished we oing to lose the about the up in ourjust the way they looked as all alive and happy together We could see the linein the sun; we could see the dro and the funeral; and , because they don't allow nothing to prevent that; whenever the call coht there, and stand up and face to the east, and lift back their heads, and spread out their aro down on their knees, and then fall forward and touch their forehead to the ground

Well, it warn't good to go on talking about them, lovely as they was in their life, and dear to us in their life and death both, because it didn't do no good, andto live as good a life as he could, so he could see theain in a better world; and Tom kept still and didn't tell him they was only Moha bad enough just as it was

When oke up nexta little cheerfuller, and had had a ood sleep, because sand is the comfortablest bed there is, and I don't see why people that can afford it don't have it ood ballast, too; I never see the balloon so steady before

Tom alloe had twenty tons of it, and wondered e better do with it; it was good sand, and it didn't seeood sense to throw it away Jim says:

”Mars To'll it take?”