"Get up and ride," she said. "We must be going." But I held the stirrup for her instead, smiling.
"Mount!" I said, and so I put her up.
"Shall we go back to camp?" she asked in some perturbation, apparently forgetting that there was no camp, and that by this time the wagons would be far to the west. For reasons of my own I thought it better to go back to the dead antelope, and so I told her.
"It is over there," she said, pointing in the direction from which she thought she had come. I differed with her, remembering I had ridden with the sun in my face when following it, and remembering the shape of the hilltop near by. Finally my guess proved correct, and we found the dead animal, nearly a mile from where she had waited for me. I hurried with the butchering, cutting the loin well forward, and rolling it all tight in the hide, bound the meat behind the saddle.
"Now, shall we go back?" she asked. "If we rode opposite to the sun, we might strike the trail. These hills look all alike."
"The river runs east and west," I said, "so we might perhaps better strike to the southward."
"But I heard them say that the river bends far to the south not far from where we crossed. We might parallel the river if we went straight south."
"But does not the trail cut off the bend, and run straight west?" I rejoined. Neither of us knew that the course of the north fork ran thence far to the northwest and quite away from the trail to Laramie.
Evidently our council was of little avail. We started southwest as nearly as we could determine it, and I admit that grave anxiety had now settled upon me. In that monotonous country only the sun and the stars might guide one. Now, hard as it was to admit the thought, I realized that we would be most fortunate if we saw the wagons again that night. I had my watch with me, and with this I made the traveler's compass, using the dial and the noon mark to orient myself; but this was of small assistance, for we were not certain of the direction of the compass in which the trail lay. As a matter of fact, it is probable that we went rather west than southwest, and so paralleled both the trail and the river for more than a dozen miles that afternoon. The girl's face was very grave, and now and again she watched me walking or trotting alongside at such speed as I could muster. My clothing was covered with blood from my wound.
I looked always for some little rivulet which I knew must lead us to the Platte, but we struck no running water until late that evening, and then could not be sure that we had found an actual water course. There were some pools of water standing in a coulee, at whose head grew a clump of wild plum trees and other straggly growth. At least here was water and some sort of shelter. I dared go no farther.