“It strikes me it would be a good habit for us all to follow at this time,” suggested Fred Wainwright. “It is getting late, and I feel like going to sleep.”
“Go ahead then,” said Ward.
But the hour was growing late, and shortly after the three hunters were wrapped in profound slumber.
CHAPTER III.
THE COMANCHES AND THEIR PRIZE.
The gray dawn of early morning was just beginning to break over the prairie when the “Trappers of the Gila” were active. Such men are invariably early risers, unless they have been deprived of several night’s rest, and desire to make it entirely up at one stretch.
Harling’s culinary skill had given him the position of caterer to the company’s appetite, and from what has been mentioned in the preceding chapter, there will be but little doubt but that he had succeeded admirably.
The time to which we refer being quite modern, the party always went provided with lucifer matches, instead of resorting to the use of the tedious flint and tender. Of course they were easily carried in such a manner as to be impervious to damp, and to be reliable at all times.
Abundant fuel was close at hand, and not five minutes intervened after their rising, when a bright fire was crackling and snapping, and the cook had another goodly-sized piece of antelope steaming and sizzling, giving out an odor enough to drive a hungry man distracted. A clear icy cold stream a hundred yards away, afforded them the means of performing their morning ablutions.
The breakfast was hastily swallowed, and just as the first beams of the morning sun came up the eastern horizon, the three hunters, mounted on their animals, were galloping over the prairie, toward Old Man’s Point, quite a noted place, which could be distinguished on the plains for a distance of twenty miles.
At the very moment of starting, Lancaster looked to the north, where a dark point, apparently the size of a man’s body could be distinguished. This he announced was the point of rendezvous, so well known to parties crossing the plain and passing into Lower California. As it was in plain sight, all the party had to do was to ride straight toward it.