“There are the stars,” replied the doctor, pointing up to the clear sky. “I know exactly what to do. We must keep on now we have started, and bear it like men.”
No one spoke, but “buckled to,” as Griggs called it, and to relieve the horses the party tramped by their side for the greater part of the night, during the early hours of which Chris grew more and more sleepy; but as they approached “night’s dull noon,” he grew more wakeful and relieved the tedium by talking to first one and then the other cheerfully enough, and never at a loss for something to say.
“It might be worse, Ned,” he said once during the night.
“Couldn’t be,” was the surly reply.
“Oh, couldn’t it! It might come on to rain tremendously. Well, what are you laughing at?” he continued, for Griggs burst out into a hoarse guffaw.
“You,” replied the American. “Don’t I wish it would rain! Why, it would cool everything. No, I don’t know that, for the earth’s so hot that all day to-morrow we should be in the midst of steam. It would refresh the horses and mules, though. Nice place this, isn’t it?”
“Horrible! What’s the use of having all this desert?”
“Don’t know,” said Griggs bluntly. “You tell me what’s the use of having all that sea, and then perhaps I’ll tell you.”
They relapsed into silence then, and the monotonous tramp went on. There was no kicking or squealing among the mules. Skeeter tramped on with his bell going clang—clang—clang—clang, in accompaniment to his steps, and the other mules followed as if walking like so many shadows in their sleep, while the ponies seemed to follow their masters like dogs, ready to accept every pat on the neck or word of encouragement, and after raising their muzzles to the offered hand and looking through the darkness appealingly, as if asking how long it would be before they came to water.
Morning at last. A halt, packs lowered to the ground, each animal’s mouth washed out with about a pint of the precious fluid—water, and then their ration given in the form of very stiff gruel.