Free Education Of a Wandering Man (1990) by Louis L'amour Page A

writing. Most young writers waste at least three paragraphs and often three pages writing about their story rather than telling it. This was one of the many things I had yet to learn.
    Behind every great piece of art, be it music, sculpture, poetry, architecture, painting, or literature, there is design, and so there must be, although every once in a while one will discover some critic speaking of a "formula" story, as if there were any other kind. In some stories it is not so easily discernible, but the design is there, and so it should be, as our predecessor Will Shakespeare knew so very well.
    Too many books are written about writing by those who are not writers. Recently I read a book on how a certain great dramatist arrived at his dialogue, an account that would be amusing to any professional writer, it was so little based in fact.
    Fortunately, I had slept in a hammock before this, so I managed very well. It at least kept me off the ground where I might awaken with a rattlesnake alongside me for warmth. As it was, two mornings later I shook a four-inch scorpion out of my boot.
    The work before me was just what I had done before, although the ground in which I worked was softer, and also, I might add, dangerous as one penetrated deeper. Whoever followed me would need to use timber. As it was, I cut quite a bit from the hillside and then turned to the road, where much work needed to be done.
    On the fourth day I had completed my work, yet I waited through the fifth, puttering about, straightening up, gathering the tools and gear together.
    Having lost most of what I owned when my gear was taken from the bus, I had but two books. They had been left on the seat when I went into the caf`e with the others, and the thieves had not been interested. One was Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome; the other, Donn Byrne's Messer Marco Polo.
    The first I had read on the two evenings after work when I first arrived. Now I completed Byrne's book, and when morning came I tossed my few belongings into the back of the old Model T.
    Surprisingly, it started easily. I had wrestled with a crank before that, and had seen others do it, and expected trouble.
    It started easily. The trouble came later.
    But not much later. In driving away, the old man had made a quick turn to get around a rock, and that was what I should have remembered.
    At the last minute I did, but too late.
    The car went over the rock, dropped hard, and something broke.
    The car would not move. I got out, walked around, and it was obvious even to me. The axle was broken, and the old Model T was going nowhere.
    I turned off the ignition, picked up my bundle from the car seat, and looked around.
    It was not yet five o'clock in the morning, and I would be getting nowhere standing about bemoaning my luck. I had no canteen, no way in which to carry water. There was a can of pears left, so I put it in my bundle and started south. The first water would be at the Owl Holes roughly four miles from the claim.
    Shouldering my bundle, I started off, walking steadily. That I was in trouble I had no doubt, but if the old man was coming for me, he would be driving right along the road by which we came in.
    The air was still cool, but the day would be hot.
    I must begin looking for shade, a place to take shelter from the midday sun. Physically I was in good shape and had always done a lot of walking, so that part did not distress me. It was the lack of water that was important.
    The road by which I had come trended southwest, then turned sharply back to the southeast, as I recalled. Among the springs mentioned on the way in, the old man had spoken of Drinkwater Spring, which was off the trail to the south, and there was a foot trail that led from there to the road by which we had come. If I dared chance it, that cutoff might save me several miles.
    Near Drinkwater Spring there was an old cabin, so it might be a place to stop during the worst of the day's heat. My walking pace was roughly three miles