"How shall I know the direction?" Prather asked.
"Trust P.D. He will find it," said Jack. He held the stirrup for Prather to mount with the relief of freeing himself at last from the clinging touch of the phantoms. "You are perfectly safe. In two days you will be mounting the steps of a Pullman on your way to New York."
"And you? What—what are you going to do?" Prather inquired hectically, with a momentary qualm of shame.
"Why, if Firio and I are to have water to make coffee for breakfast we must take the water-hole!" Jack answered, as if this were a thing of minor importance beside seeing Prather safely on his way. "Be sure not to overwater P.D. after the night's ride, and don't overdo him on the final stretch, and turn him over to Galway when you arrive. Home, P.D.! Home!" he concluded, striking that good soldier with the flat of his hand on the buttocks. And P.D. trotted away into the night.
Jack listened to the hoof-beats on the soft earth dying away and then crept up beside Firio on the bank and gazed into the black wall in the direction of the cotton-woods. A slight glow in the basin, which must be Leddy's camp-fire, was the only sign of life in the neighborhood. The silence was profound. He had not spoken a word to Firio. With one problem forever solved, he was absorbed in another.
"Leddy drinks, eats, waits!" whispered Firio. "If we try to go they hunt us down!"
"Yes," said Jack.
"And we not go, eh? We stay? We fight?"
"For water, Firio, yes! Two against seven!"
"Sí!" Firio had no illusions about the situation. "Sí!" he repeated stoically.