“And I, with you, then,” I replied honestly. The thought of water obsessed. She must have read, for she inquired:
“Aren’t you thirsty?”
“Are you?”
“Yes. Why don’t we drink?”
“Should we?”
“Why not? We might as well be as comfortable as we can.” She reached for the canteen lying in a fast dwindling strip of rock shade. We drank sparingly. She let me dribble a few drops upon her shoulder. Thenceforth by silent agreement we moistened 294 our tongues, scrupulously turn about, wringing the most from each brief sip as if testing the bouquet of exquisite wine. Came a time when we regretted this frugalness; but just now there persisted within us, I suppose, that germ of hope which seems to be nourished by the soul.
The Sioux had counciled and decided. They faced us, in manner determined. We waited, tense and watchful. Without even a premonitory shout a pony bolted for us, from their huddle. He bore two riders, naked to the sun, save for breech clouts. They charged straight in, and at her mystified, alarmed murmur I was holding on them as best I could, finger crooked against trigger, coaxing it, praying for luck, when the rear rider dropped to the ground, bounded briefly and dived headlong, worming into a little hollow of the sand.
He lay half concealed; the pony had wheeled to a shrill, jubilant chorus; his remaining rider lashed him in retreat, leaving the first digging lustily with hand and knife.
That was the system, then: an approach by rushes.
“We mustn’t permit it,” she breathed. “We must rout him out—we must keep them all out or they’ll get where they can pick you off. Can you reach him?”