Show LURED BY A MIRAGE at lancaster a town thirty miles from here in an open valley at the edge of colorado desert lived stephen hans dorf with his wife and 20 months old boy says the los angeles herald thursday he left home for another part of the place where he was working late in the afternoon the mother went in search of a stray cow the baby clad only in a calico wrapper hatless and barefooted without the mothers knowledge k rel owl dge started after her when she returned turned and missed him she alarmed the neighborhood A searching party hunted until night without avail excitement cit ement spread through the whole town and by daylight the next neit morning it a strong party ot of organized searchers renewed the quest there was no timber in the region but the cactus and sage brush were so high as to render it impossible to see the child at a short distance even from the back of st a horse the region is is one of intense heat and infested with rattle snakes coyotes and many poisonous insects the earth in many any places is crusted with alkali for m a 10 long ng time the party discovered no signs whatever finally a coyote trail was struck on it could occasionally be seen the footprints of a child with now and then splotches of blood on the cactus ar arranging r nging themselves so they should not lose e sight sigh t of each other the searchers f followed the trail spread spreading ng themselves over a width of half a mile the trail led direct to the desert and to a phenomenon known a as dry lake this lake is nothing more more than a solid bed of white alkali the crust of which is perfectly hard and level standing on oil rolling sand 0 on 11 k the edge 0 of f this la lake I 1 e a traveler beholds a wonderful mirage of a sheet of silvery clear water the party concluded that the child consumed by thirst had toddled over to this lake and though the indurate crust would reveal no footprints the party pressed on over it four miles from the edge was found the dead body of the little wanderer lying on his face his feet legs and bands torn and thi the blood crusted over them he had been dead but a few hours yet his body was blistering under the burning sun the party airty seized the child and hurried back to the edge of the lake before reaching which the their r own tongues had commenced to swell with heat beat and lack of water the little fellow had walked all night night and had died of exhaustion just as the sun was commencing commencing com to manifest its fearful heat he hag had walked fourteen miles into one of the most terrible regions on earth |