. Somehow they had
drifted off the trail marked on the map drawn by George Williams.

Williams had warned them to carry as much water as possible in barrels,
as a precaution against suffering if they failed to strike water each
night. He had told them that water was scarce, but that his cowboy
scouts and the deep-worn buffalo trails had been able to bring him
through with water at every camp save two or three. The Staked Plains,
he said, would be the hardest drive. And this was the Staked Plains--and
it was hard driving!

Buddy did not know all that until afterwards, when he heard father talk
of the drive north. But he would have remembered that day and the night
that followed, even though he had never heard a word about it.
The bawling of the herd became a doleful chant of misery. Even the
phlegmatic oxen that drew the wagons bawled and slavered while they
strained forward, twisting their heads under the heavy yokes. They
stopped oftener than usual to rest, and when Buddy was permitted to walk
with the perspiring Ezra by the leaders, he wondered why the oxen's eyes
were red, like Dulcie's when she had one of her crying spells.

At night the cowboys did not tie their horses and sit down while they
ate, but stood by their mounts and bolted food hurriedly, one eye always
on the restless cattle, that walked around and around, and would neither
eat nor lie down, but lowed incessantly. Once a few animals came close
enough to smell the water in a bucket where Frank Davis was watering
his sweat-streaked horse, and Step-and-a-Half's wagon was almost upset
before the maddened cattle could be driven back to the main herd.

"No use camping," Bob Birnie told the boys gathered around
Step-and-a-Half's Dutch ovens. "The cattle won't stand. We'll wear
ourselves and them out trying to hold 'em-they may as well be hunting
water as running in circles. Step-and-a-Half, keep your cooked grub
handy for the boys, and yo' all pack up and pull out. We'll turn the
cattle loose and follow. If there's any water in this damned country
they'll find it."

Years afterwards, Buddy learned that his father had sent men out to
hunt water, and that they had not found any. He was ten when this was
discussed around a spring roundup fire, and he had studied the matter
for a few minutes and then had spoken boldly his mind.

"You oughta kept your horses as thirsty as the cattle was, and I bet
they'd a' found that water," he criticized, and was sent to be