"They're harder pressed than I thought. They've had water stored here. They'll rest somewhere in the cutway to-night. We'll likely run them down before morning if our horses can stand it."
Back at the rock, the Ranger was cooking their supper over a fire of withered moss and pinon chips, keeping the old man's mind off his fevered thirst by calling attention to the tricks of Desert growth to save water.
"You see the cactus turns its leaves into water vats with spikes to keep intruders off; and the greasewood stops evaporation by a varnish of gum. I'm sun-veneered all right. I don't sweat all my moisture out—"
"Better varnish me, then, before ye take me out again."
Less than a pint of water had seeped into the little kettle; and this they used for their tea, mixing the flour with the stale water from the mud pool. Then, they lighted pipes and lay back to rest.
Wayland had placed the kettle back under the drip of the ledge.
"A can understand Moses smitin' the rocks for a spring; and such a wind as we had to-day blowin' the Red Sea dry," observed the old man dreamily.
"I guess if you get any miracle down to close quarters, you'll sort it out all right without busting common sense," returned Wayland.
He wasn't thinking of the day's hardships.
The silver strip of the far mountains had faded; first, the purple base; then, the melting opal summit. At last, the restless wind had sunk. The red rocks of the mesa darkened to spectral shapes. The heat, the scorch, the torrid pain of the day had calmed to the soft velvet caress of the indigo Desert night. Twice, the Ranger dozed off to wake with a start, with a sense of her hand warning danger. Always before, the thought of her had come in an involuntary consciousness whelmed of happiness; but to-night, was it . . . fear?