ll_ hold water," vowed Betty, ready for argument. "I've worn
bathing caps of a lot poorer grade of silk and never a drop got
through. Besides I put a thickness of silk, then a layer of these
broad leaves, then another piece of silk, to make sure."

"Fine," he said. "Yes, it will hold water for a while. But it's a
long time from daylight until dark, and I'm afraid----"

"As if I hadn't thought of that!" said Betty. "I knew that if I looked
around I'd find something. I thought of your boots, of course; and I
thought of your rifle barrel. But you'll need the boots and may need
the gun. Come and I'll show you our reservoir."

She put a handful of leaves and twigs on the fire for the sake of more
light, and led the way toward the narrowing fissure further back in
their retreat. Here she stopped before a great rudely egg-shaped
boulder five or six feet through that lay in a shallow depression in
the ground.

"Our water bottle," said Betty.

He supposed that she referred to the depression in the rock floor,
since the boulder did not fit in it so exactly as to preclude the
possibility of the big rude basin holding water. The word
"evaporation" was on his lips when Betty explained. She had hoped to
find somewhere a cavity in a rock that would hold their water supply;
she had noted this boulder and a flattish place at its top. There her
questing fingers had discovered what Kendric's, at her direction, were
exploring now. There was a fairly round hole, a couple of inches
across. The edges were surprisingly smooth; Kendric could not guess
how deep the hole was.

"Poke a stick into it," Betty commanded.

Obeying, he learned that the hole extended eighteen inches or more.
Here was a fairly regular cylinder let into a block of hard rock that
would contain something like two quarts of water--certainly enough to
keep the life in two people for twenty-four hours.

"We'll make a plug to fit into the mouth of it," he said, catching her
idea and immediately was as enthusiastic over it as Betty. "And while
we're out getting the water we'll find something for straws. There are
wild grasses, oats or something that looks like oats, in the canon."

The night was well spent; dawn would come early. And with the dawn,
they had no doubt, the mountain trails would fill with Zoraida's men,
questing like hounds. Hence Betty and Jim lost no more time in making
their trip down the steep slope to the trickle of water. They dra