“Oh, hold on!” Dick protested. “This has been a pretty stiff tug for all of us. I’m not feeling so very much of a much, myself, just now, and neither is Larry.”
“But you’re not beefing about it, either of you,” Purdick put in.
“Neither are you,” Dick asserted. “When it comes down to pure sand, you’ve got more than either of us. You’ve been tramping on sheer nerve, all day long. I know it, and Larry knows it.”
By this time, Larry was coming back down the hill, and he didn’t look as if he had seen anything encouraging from the top of it.
“What luck?” Dick asked; and Larry shook his head.
“Nothing but more hills and hollows. No sign of any plain, any town, or any railroad.”
Little Purdick heaved himself to his feet, getting up like a camel—one pair of joints at a time.
“Come on,” he said. “There are only a few more hours of daylight left, and I’ll make myself last that long if it kills me.”
When he said this, neither of the others tried to argue with him. They knew it wouldn’t do any good. So the line of march was taken up again, upon a course as nearly due north as the nature of the region would permit. By holding this direction they knew absolutely that they must come to the railroad, sooner or later; and once in touch with that, they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, be very far from the town.
Much to Dick’s surprise, though not so much to Larry’s—for Larry knew him best—Purdick held out bravely; and when it was finally decided that they must camp for the night, which they did just before dark, Purdick helped gather wood, and himself made the fire for the boiling of the coffee water: a final brewing of coffee being the only thing they had left in the stripped commissary.