My great hope and consolation now was that I might soon meet the
relief party. But where was the relief party? Echo could only
answer--where? About the 29th I had emptied the keg, and was still
over twenty miles from the Circus. Ah! who can imagine what twenty
miles means in such a case? But in this April's ivory moonlight I
plodded on, desolate indeed, but all undaunted, on this lone,
unhallowed shore. At last I reached the Circus, just at the dawn of
day. Oh, how I drank! how I reeled! how hungry I was! how thankful I
was that I had so far at least escaped from the jaws of that howling
wilderness, for I was once more upon the range, though still twenty
miles from home.
There was no sign of the tracks, of any one having been here since I
left it. The water was all but gone. The solitary eagle still was
there. I wondered what could have become of Gibson; he certainly had
never come here, and how could he reach the fort without doing so?
I was in such a miserable state of mind and body, that I refrained
from more vexatious speculations as to what had delayed him: I stayed
here, drinking and drinking, until about ten a.m., when I crawled away
over the stones down from the water. I was very footsore, and could
only go at a snail's pace.
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