and the canyon, while the train was to press on,
always keeping a watchful look-out until their Indian escort returned.

The Beaver and his men scoured off like the wind, and were soon lost to
view, while that night and the next day the long train moved slowly over
the plain to avoid the dense clumps of prickly cactus and agaves,
suffering terribly from thirst, for what had been verdant when Bart was
there last was now one vast expanse of dust, which rose thickly in
clouds at the tramp of horse or mule.

The want of water was beginning to be severely felt; and as they went
sluggishly on, towards the second evening horses and mules with drooping
heads, and the cattle lowing piteously, Bart, as he kept cantering from
place to place to say a few encouraging words, knew that he could hold
out no hope of water being reached till well on in the next day, and he
would have urged a halt for rest, only that the Doctor was eager for
them to get as well on their way as possible.

Night at last, a wretched, weary night of intense heat, and man and
beast suffering horribly from thirst. The clouds had gathered during
the night, and the thunder rolled in the distance, while vivid flashes
of lightning illumined the plains, but no rain fell, and when morning
broke, after the most painful time Bart had ever passed, he found the
Doctor looking ghastly, his eyes bloodshot, his lips cracked, and that
even hardy Joses was suffering to as great an extent.

The people were almost in a state of mutiny, and ready to ask the Doctor
if he had dragged them to this terrible blinding waste to perish from
thirst; while it was evident that if water was not soon reached half the
beasts must fall down by the way.

As it was, numbers of the poor animals were bleeding from the mouth and
nostrils from the pricks received as they eagerly champed the various
plants of the cactus family.

"Let us push on," said the Doctor; "everything depends upon our getting
on to that shallow lake, for there is no water in the way;" but with
every desire to push on, the task became more laborious every hour,--the
cattle were constantly striving to stray off to right or left in search
of something to quench their maddening thirst, while, go where he would,
the Doctor was met by fierce, angry looks and muttered threats.

It would have been easy enough for the men to ride on to find water, but
there was always the fear that if they did, the Indians would select
just th