It clasped her hard and they
walked to where at the rock's base the sage grew high. Here she laid a
blanket for him and spread another on the top of the bushes, fastening
it to the tallest ones till it stretched, a sheltering canopy, over
him. She tried to cheer him with assurances that water would be found
at the next halting place. He was listless at first, seeming not to
listen, then the life in her voice roused his sluggish faculties, his
cheeks took color, and his dull glance lit on point after point in its
passage to her face, like the needle flickering toward the pole.

"If I could get water enough to drink, I'd be all right," he said.
"The pains are gone."

"They _must_ find it soon," she answered, lifting the weight of his
fallen courage, heavy as his body might have been to her arms. "This
is a traveled road. There _must_ be a spring somewhere along it."

And she continued prying up the despairing spirit till the man began to
respond, showing returning hope in the eagerness with which he hung on
her words. When he lay sinking into drowsy quiet, she stole away from
him to where the camp was spread about the unlit pyre of Daddy John's
sage brush. It was too early for supper, and the old man, with the
accouterments of the hunt slung upon his person and his rifle in his
hand, was about to go afield after jack rabbit.

"It's a bad business this," he said in answer to the worry she dared
not express. "The animals can't hold out much longer."

"What are we to do? There's only a little water left in one of the
casks."

"Low's goin' to strike across for the other trail. He's goin' after
supper, and he says he'll ride all night till he gets it. He thinks if
he goes due that way," pointing northward, "he can strike it sooner
than by goin' back."

They looked in the direction he pointed. Each bush was sending a
phenomenally long shadow from its intersection with the ground. There
was no butte or hummock to break the expanse between them and the
faint, far silhouette of mountains. Her heart sank, a sinking that
fatigue and dread of thirst had never given her.

"He may lose us," she said.

The old man jerked his head toward the rock.

"He'll steer by that, and I'll keep the fire going till morning."

"But how can he ride all night? He must be half dead now."

"A man like him don't die easy. It's not the muscle and the bones,
it's the grit. He says it's him that made the mistake and it's him