"Hum!" said Morton; "that rather capsizes the notion. But I think we can fix it by running the creek up and down a bit."
"Well, I'm willing," returned Brown. "I don't think we are such duffers as to miss each other if we get anywhere within a few miles."
In the morning the plan mooted was carried out, and they left the spring, as they hoped, for good that journey. The creek Brown and Charlie followed proved to be very serpentine in its course. When they stopped for a mid-day spell Brown worked out the dead reckoning, and came to the conclusion that although they had come over fifteen miles in distance, they had not made more than ten in a direct course. Still the creek, on an average, was bearing in towards the other one, and they reckoned they must strike it late in the afternoon.
As they went on the flat grew wider and the empty water-holes further apart, but everything bore the look of a prolonged drought. At four o'clock they sighted the other creek ahead, but there were no signs of the others.
"Wonder how your cousin got on?" Brown said to Charlie. "Hurrah! there he is!" he returned, as a horseman came into sight riding down the bank of the old creek.
Morton pulled up when he caught sight of them, and waited.
"Any water?" he asked when they came up.
"Not a drop. I don't think there has been any in it since the time of Noah's flood. How did you get on?"
"There was no water in the creek we followed, but there is a decent hole where it junctions with this one, about two miles up from here."
"Salt?"