“Have you no flask, man?”
“It is emptied long ago.”
“Take mine, then.”
“Good! But the horses? Can we not dig a well here?”
“Dig! Why, man, you would go to China before you found enough to wet the tongue of a bird. Do these sage bushes look as if they had ever seen dew?”
“Then the horses must die.”
“Not yet. Strip them of your heavy saddles—throw the blankets away. The cool air will revive them, and so we gain miles. Then, if worst comes to worst, they must be left, and my word for it, they will find water themselves long before morning. A beast’s instincts never fail in that matter. I’ve seen it tried over and again. Off with your saddles, boys, and drive the horses before you.”
He was obeyed, and again the company started, and straggled on. But the toil soon told on the men. They mounted once more, and forced the beasts forward, staggering, stumbling, falling.
“Water!”
The cry came now most piercing from parched human lips, for the sun, blazing above their heads, poured down sheeted fire upon them, and the now almost herbless earth was like an oven beneath their feet. Dense as the smoke from the smouldering ruins of a burning city, the dust rose, but to settle again, choking and blinding them. The breeze of morning was dead, and millions of myriads of insects swept a dense cloud along their path. It was agony to struggle on—death to remain!