“What now?” questioned a man who was among the most restive of the group. “Why not dash ahead and get out of this confounded mud-hole? Whew! its enough to worry a man to death in here. No air, no nothing but dust, gnats and poisonous snakes.”
“Are you ready to die?” said Waltermyer, solemnly, his usual gay demeanor changing, and his honest face wearing an expression of intense anxiety, if not pain.
“To die? What kind of a question is that? No man is ready to die.”
“Yet death is around you. Hark! Do you hear that noise?”
“Yes, something is rushing through the dry reeds. One of the horses we left, perhaps.”
“No horse ever traveled so fast as that. Even a deer could not keep the pace.”
“What is it, then?”
“Stand up on your horse and look.”
“I see a great cloud of thick dust—thick as if a hundred buffalo were crowding along.”
“Thar may be buffalo, and thar may be deer, but, my life for it, they are not coming this way.”