The sun beats mercilessly overhead with its suffocating heat. You struggle to push onward, stumbling really, as if in a drunken stupor. With empty pack and dry canteen, the sweat-stained locks matted beneath your hat brim are the closest you've come to water in days. From the corner of your eye, you notice a cottonmouth slither through the parched brush. A mountain lion hungrily observes you from the ragged ridge above, while a vulture hangs lazily overhead. Questions race through your mind. Is there really gold in this cursed land? Will anyone ever find it? Am I a fool? Will I make it out alive?