"Oh, she knows Sancho's and Chiquita's tracks," asseverated Henry; "she knows their halters, bridles, and will bring them when told to, without mistake."
The sentinel awakened us next morning at four o'clock, and informed us that the Indians had left two hours before. The animals were again driven to the Tanks, the vessels and canteens filled, and at six o'clock we were on the road. Nearly all our water was used in the preparation of breakfast, except that in the canteens. It would have been better if we had made a third trip to the cisterns and refilled our coffee-pot and camp-kettles; but the delay necessary to do it, and the assurance that there was water at Hole-in-the-Plain, determined me to go on at once. The weather was a repetition of that of the previous day—hot and windless.
The road proved generally smooth, but there were occasional long stretches over which it was impossible to drive faster than a walk. About four in the afternoon we reached Hole-in-the-Plain, and found nothing but a few hundred square yards of thin mud. The fierce rays of the sun had nearly evaporated every vestige of the recent rainfall, and in twenty-four hours more the mud would be baked earth.
Vic, consumed with thirst and suffering in the extreme heat, waded into the mud and rolled in it until she was the color of a fresh adobe, and was, in consequence, made to ride thereafter in disgrace on the driver's foot-board.
We had intended to pass the night at the Hole, but want of water compelled us to move on. Very gloomy and doubtful of the outcome, we left the Hole-in-the-Plain. We were toiling slowly up a slope, nearly a dozen miles on this third stage of the desert route, when a horseman overtook us, who proved to be Mr. Gray. He slowed up, listened to my account of our perplexities, and after saying many hopeful and cheering things, telling us that Tyson's Wells were now not far ahead, he galloped swiftly away in the darkness.
At midnight the road ascended to a considerably higher level and became suddenly hard and smooth. The driver urged the team into a series of brief and spasmodic trots, which lasted a couple of hours, when we again descended to a lower level, where the wearily slow gait was resumed. With the slower pace our spirits fell and our thirst increased. As Private Tom Clary expressed it to the driver:
"In a place like this a gallon of Black Tanks water would be acciptible without a strainer, and no reflictions passed upon the wigglers."
"That's so, Tom," called Henry, from the depths of his blankets; "I could drink two quarts of it—half and half."
"Half and half—what do you mean?" I asked.