Manny Barren Months and Miles

"They're pretty thin," Cash observed speculatively, as though he was
measuring them mentally for some particular need.

"We'd have to grain 'em heavy till we struck better feed. And pack
light." Bud answered his thought.

"The question is, where shall we head for, Bud? Have you any particular
idea?" Cash looked slightingly down at the assayer's report. "Such
as she is, we've done all we can do to the Burro Lode, for a year at
least," he said. "The assessment work is all done--or will be when we
muck out after that last shot. The claim is filed--I don't know what
more we can do right away. Do you?"

"Sure thing," grinned Bud. "We can get outa here and go some place where
it's green."

"Yeah." Cash meditated, absently eyeing the burros. "Where it's green."
He looked at the near hills, and at the desert, and at the dreary march
of the starved animals. "It's a long way to green country," he said.

They looked at the burros.

"They're tough little devils," Bud observed hopefully. "We could take
it easy, traveling when it's coolest. And by packing light, and graining
the whole bunch--"

"Yeah. We can ease 'em through, I guess. It does seem as though it would
be foolish to hang on here any longer." Carefully as he made his tests,
Cash weighed the question of their going. "This last report kills any
chance of interesting capital to the extent of developing the claim on
a large enough scale to make it profitable. It's too long a haul to take
the ore out, and it's too spotted to justify any great investment in
machinery to handle it on the ground. And," he added with an undernote
of fierceness, "it's a terrible place for man or beast to stay in,
unless the object to be attained is great enough to justify enduring the
hardships."