II
They sat down on a fallen log and ate their lunch, and then they were thirsty.
“Let’s find a brook and get a drink,” said Tonio. “I know there must be one right near here.”
They left their bundle of wood and walked for some distance searching for water, but no stream did they find. They grew thirstier and thirstier.
“It seems to me I shall dry up and blow away if we don’t find it pretty soon,” said Tita.
“I’ve almost found it, I think,” answered Tonio. “It must be right over by those willow trees.”
They went to the willow trees but there was no stream there.
“I think we’d better go back and get [p 113] the wood and start home,” said Tita. “We can get a drink in the goat-pasture.”
“All right,” said Tonio, and he led the way back into the woods.
They looked and looked for the bundle of sticks, but somehow everything seemed different.
“I’m sure it must have been right near here,” said Tonio. “I remember that black stump. I’m sure I do, because it looks like a bear sitting up on his hind legs. Don’t you remember it, Tita?”
But Tita didn’t remember it, and I’m afraid Tonio didn’t either, really, for the bundle of sticks certainly was not there. They hunted about for a long time, and at last Tonio said, “I think we’d better go back to Tonto; he may be lonesome.”
But Tonto had disappeared too! Tonio was sure he knew just where he had left him, but when they got to the place he wasn’t there, and it wasn’t the place either! It was very discouraging.
At last Tonio said, “Well, anyway, [p 114] Tonto knows the way home by himself. We’ll just let him find his own way, and we’ll go home by ourselves.”
“All right,” said Tita, and they started down the mountain-side.
They had walked quite a long way when Tita said, “I think we’re high enough up so we ought to see the lake.” But no lake was in sight in any direction.
Tita began to cry. “We-we-we’re just as lost as we can be,” she sobbed. “And you did it! You said you knew the way, and you didn’t, and now we’ll die of hunger and nobody will find us—I want to go home.”
“Hush up,” said Tonio. “Crying won’t help. We’ll keep on walking and walking and we’ll just have to come to something, some time. And there’ll be people there and they’ll tell us how to go.”
Tonio seemed so sure of this that Tita was a little comforted. They walked for a very long time—hours it seemed to her—before Tita spoke again.
Then she said, “There’s a big black cloud, and the sun is lost in it, and it’s going to rain, and we aren’t anywhere at all yet!”
They had got down to level ground by this time and were walking through a great [p 116] field of maguey[18] plants. The maguey is a strange great century-plant that grows higher than a man’s head. When it gets ready to blossom the center is cut out and the hollow place fills with a sweet juice which Mexicans like to drink. Tonio knew this and thought perhaps he could get a drink in that way.
So he cut down a hollow-stemmed weed with his machete and made a pipe out of it. Then he climbed up on the plant that had been cut and stuck one end of his pipe into the juice, and the other into his mouth. When he had had enough, he boosted Tita up and she got a drink too. This made them feel better, and they walked on until they had passed the maguey plantation and were out in the open fields once more.