Larry shook his head. “You don’t know Purdy as well as I do. That little rat is the clearest kind of grit, all the way through. He’ll drop dead in his tracks before he’ll ever let us help him over the bumps.”
“Huh!” said Dick, spreading his blankets for the night. “When the time comes, we won’t ask his royal permission. We’ll just hog-tie him on old Fishbait’s back, if we have to. Good-night. I’m going to dream of all the good things there are to eat in this world.”
The morning of the third day of enforced abstinence dawned as beautifully as nearly all of their mornings had, thus far, and for breakfast they finished the canned things and—figuratively speaking at least—licked the cans. Purdick seemed all right again after his night’s rest, but neither Dick nor Larry guessed what an effort he had to make to swallow his small share of the peaches and tomatoes.
“Feeling equal to a few more miles this morning, Purdy?” Larry asked, as they were putting the pack saddles on the burros.
“I’m still staying with you,” returned the small one gamely. Then: “You mustn’t worry about me, Larry. There have been times in the past when I had to go short on the eats for a good deal more than two days hand-running, and I never thought anything of it. I’ll get my second wind, after a little.”
“I’m not worrying,” said Larry; but that was not strictly true.
With a start fairly made, Dick took careful compass bearings, utilizing every open space they came to as a lookout from which to determine, if possible, the amount of southing they had made during the previous day. As the day wore on without bringing anything that looked like a familiar landmark into view, the case began to look rather desperate.
By the middle of the afternoon they were down in a region of foot-hills, and the going was much easier; but though they still kept working persistently north and west, no gap in the hills opened to show them the buckskin-colored plain they had seen from the mountain top. By this time, Dick and Larry both were growing more than anxious about Purdick. Twice Dick had made that suggestion about unloading one of the jacks and turning it into a riding animal, but Purdick had stoutly fought the idea, saying that he was getting along all right. But both of his hardier companions could see plainly that he was putting one foot before the other by a sheer effort of will.
At four o’clock Larry called a halt, ostensibly to let the burros feed upon a patch of luxuriant grass in the ravine they were at that time traversing, but really to give Purdick a chance to throw himself down and rest—which he promptly did. When it came time to go on again, the small one said his say briefly.
“I’m all in, fellows,” he said. “You leave me a couple of the blankets and go on without me. When you find the town—if you ever do find it—you can come back after me. As things stand now, I’m only a drag on the wheels.”