All were excessively weary, and, though the meal revived their spirits in a measure, no one would have been averse to seeking his roll of blankets at an early hour. This, however, was forestalled by the sound of a voice that came suddenly from the night about them—a strange, cracked voice that startled them.
“Hello!” it said. “I hope and trust ye ain’t used up all the water in the spring, ’cause I ain’t had a drop since noon, an’ Lot’s Wife ain’t had none since yistiddy mornin’.”
Omar Leach, who was reclining on one elbow placidly smoking a short briar pipe, flipped himself to a sitting posture and stared at Morley. Morley’s face twitched, and his close-set eyes seemed to narrow perceptibly as he gazed back at his partner.
Then Leach gave himself another flip and was on his feet. “Get outa here!” he bawled. “Go on home, and you’ll find plenty of water. We’re tired and want to go to bed and can’t be bothered with you.”
“Oh, it’s you, is it, Omar?” called the voice. “An’ ye’d send me on to the mountains without a drink, would ye? It’s like ye, by gum! Well, I’m comin’ in for water for me an’ Lot’s Wife. Maybe the rest o’ yer gang ain’t so all-fired selfish. C’m’ere, ye pillar o’ salt! Wait a min-ut, can’t ye!”
This last apparently was addressed to Lot’s Wife, who, when she dashed into camp and buried her muzzle in the spring basin, proved to be a slant-eared, knock-kneed female burro as shaggy as the trunk of a shell-bark hickory. After her plodded a man, who had lost his hold on her lead-rope.
Smith Morley darted toward the burro and gave her a kick in the belly that brought a grunt of pain from her. He drew back his leg for another, but found himself facing Charmian Reemy’s flashing eyes.
“You kick that burro again,” she said, “and I start for home to-morrow morning. So that’s the kind of man you are, is it? You would keep a fellow traveller in this forsaken land and his burro from drinking water, would you? Well, Mr. Morley, I don’t know whether it is safe to trust in a business deal a man who has such selfishness in his heart as you have shown. I may decide to go back anyway.”
Smith Morley looked foolish and embarrassed.
“But you don’t understand, Mrs. Reemy,” he defended himself. “This water is mighty precious. We’ll have to let it drip twelve hours to get enough for ourselves and the pack animals for a day; and I can see right now that the horses will have to go to the mountains in the morning. And this fellow here—I know him well. He’s the recognized nuisance of the Shinbone Country. A burro can go for days without water—they’re like a camel, Mrs. Reemy. And this old desert rat can do it, too. He’s less than ten miles from his home. Why don’t he go there for his water? We were here first. It’s first come first served in the Shinbone Country, when it comes to water.”