pretty careful about walking about when we get down. It'd be as
well to ride about a bit when we stop for camping, so as to scare the
beggars away. We don't want to get bitten."

But from that time, oddly enough, they saw no sign or trace of the
reptiles. The sun grew hotter and hotter, but neither in sandy level
nor rugged stony patch was a snake seen basking. Nothing was visible
but lizards, and they disappeared when the doctor called a halt in the
most rugged part of a stony waste where there was an overhanging cliff
and a broken gully which promised at a distance to be the home of a
spring; but though it had evidently been at one time a pool overhung by
rocks, there was not a trace of moisture. It afforded a little shelter,
however, in an overhanging part where there was a rugged projecting
shelf, and there being nothing better, the halt was made there, only to
prove too hot a one for endurance, the rocks seeming to glow, and
keeping off such air as was astir as well as the sun; so after a short
time the doctor decided to go on once more in search of some more likely
place.

In those hot, weary hours the elasticity and cheerfulness of the boys
died away. In the early morning it had been all laugh and chat and
notice of everything they passed that seemed novel, but with the coming
of noon quite a change came over them, and Ned took to sighing from time
to time, then to murmuring, and at last after a long, low expiration of
the breath--

"Oh dear," he cried, "I am getting so tired of this!"

"Well, you are a fellow!" grumbled Chris. "Only an hour or two ago you
talked as if you liked it."

"Ah, I wasn't so hot and fagged out then. It gets so jolly monotonous.
Here we go on, ride and tramp, ride and tramp, day after day, seeing
nothing but sand and sage-brush, sand and sage-brush. Always tired,
always being scorched by the sun till one's giddy, and--"

"Here, father!" cried Chris, but without turning his head.

"What are you going to do?" said Ned, in a hurried whisper.

"Call father up, for you to grumble to him."

"Nonsense!" whispered Ned. "Don't be a stupid donkey. Can't I say a
word or two without you wanting to tell tales?"

"I don't want to tell tales; I want for you to tell father yourself.
You talked as if you had had enough of it, and wanted to go back."

"Who wants to go back?" cried Ned angrily. "Nice thing if one can't say
what one likes about one's feelings! I only said what I di