And in this cockpit of hell, the blistering heat combined with the rarefied atmosphere to blow out another tire--and to blow it out this time beyond repair.
"Whew!" exclaimed Murray disconsolately, viewing the damage. "Nothing for it but to strip her and put on the other spare."
"Can't you run on the rim?" queried Claire anxiously.
"No chance, with this load of stuff in back, and the road we must follow! We'd smash every spring in the car. Well, here goes!"
There was no breeze. The far vistas of the horizon hung dancing with heat waves, like painted scenery jerking on springs. Mountains and mirages, all hung there and danced, a weird dance of death and desolation.
The unstirred air was heavy and thick with invisible dust. Sunlight crawled and slavered white-hot brilliance over everything, pierced into everything. His face running with blinding sweat, Murray impatiently threw aside his hat. Presently his unruly red hair was no longer wet and blackened; it crowned his flushed features like an aureole, crisp and dry and very hot.
He had the new tube and casing on, and attached the pump. Laboring steadily, he cursed to himself at the heat--the broiling, insufferably dry heat of that salt basin. A sudden breath of hot air caused him to glance up, and his lips cracked in a smile. Claire was leaning from the car and fanning him, her straw hat flapping the air down over him.
"Thanks, Clairedelune," he croaked hoarsely. "It helps."
"Will you have a drink? The water bottle----"
"No, thanks. I'll finish this job first."
The tire was beginning to harden. He bent again over the pump, driving himself to the labor. At last it was done--done well enough, at least. He disconnected the pump and tossed it into the car. A word from Claire broke in upon him.
"What's that! Something moved against the sand--oh! It's a snake!"
He laughed unsteadily as he looked. A snake in truth--an incoherent, feeble object that slipped across the sand and blended there, shapeless and indistinct; a stark-blind thing, a living volute of death and venom. Murray flung a handful of sand. The reptile lashed out viciously at the air.
"A rattler shedding its old skin; blind and deadly poisonous at this season," he said. "I remember Mackintavers warned us about it--no rattles, no sound at all!" He laughed, for his own voice astonished him; it sounded thin and tenuous, far away, distant.