“I don’t know but what you are right, Nat. We must have come a long distance, utterly unconscious of it, in our eagerness to get that plaguey antelope, and it is useless to hope to reach camp again before morning.”
“That’s my opinion, exactly. That camp, I opine, is a good dozen miles off yet.”
“Then we may have a chance of reaching it still before morning, as this bright moon favors us.”
The moon, full and clear, had arisen an hour before, and its light illumined the prairie for a great distance around. Far away, on every hand, we could discern the blue outline of the horizon, while the prairie seemed to roll up against it like the dark boundaries of a mighty ocean. Everything was as silent and motionless as though we were treading a region of death.
Mile after mile, we trudged on, beguiling the time by conversation. The ground was dry and hard, and the vegetation scarce and stunted. The day had been quite warm, and there was a delicious coolness about the evening air that made it pleasant to walk an hour or so; but as more than double that time had expired since we commenced, it had long been exceedingly wearisome to us.
“I wonder whether those fellows will go a foot out of the way to pick us up,” muttered Nat, half to himself.
“I don’t believe they will. They told us they wouldn’t and they value their time too highly to waste it for a couple who are of no account to them, especially since we can fall in with other trains.”
“I reckon they’re of some account to us, being they have got both our horses and considerable of our traveling apparatus.”