They moved so fast that by dark, when they went into camp in the bottom of a gulch where there was water, they had traveled at least twenty miles.
[CHAPTER XXXII.—IN GREATER PERIL STILL.]
With the first glimmer of day the following morning all were awake, and a very light breakfast was made of the root bread, which the chief distributed with great fairness as far as it went.
As Sam had agreed, he turned over to the chief the rifles, pistols, knives and blankets belonging to his party, keeping back only the canteens, which had been filled with water, and the saddle-bags.
"I should like to borrow my own rifle from you," said Sam, after he had made the transfer, "for it is not safe to travel through this land without a weapon to defend one's self from foe or wild beasts. I shall return it when I send you the other things."
"I let you have dis gun," said the chief, pointing to the old rusty shot-gun that had been the special object of Ike's care and the delight of his heart for so long.
"Take her, Mistah Sam, take her," urged Ike. "Dar ain't anodder gun like her—no, not in all dis yar land."
This was certainly the truth, yet "she" was rather an unreliable weapon to depend on in a trying emergency.
"That is a shot-gun, no good to you or to me. Let me have my own rifle with some ammunition, and I pledge my life to send it back and six more equally good with it."
"I tell you what I do," said the chief, after some deliberation and a good deal of whispering with his own people.