“What you mean by running off this a-way?”
It was the twenty-fourth day. All around them stretched a desert of alkali broken by patches of tree-cactus and clumps of bear-grass, and through the white, chalky dust Sam toiled dispiritedly a dozen yards in front of the stallion. Behind the faltering buckskin limped five skeletons of horses, and ten yards behind the hindermost walked Dave. There was no need that Charlie remain far in rear. The mustangs did not notice him, and he followed close with the burro.
The rovers had drunk deep that morning at a spring on the edge of the desert--this being as Dave would have it--and now all vigor of body and spirit had departed. Sam’s head swung low to the ground, his knees were shaking and he saw nothing of what he passed. To his bloodshot eyes these scorched wastes were a wavering mist, and he knew only that he must go on.
Suddenly, as though by telepathic agreement, the weird procession halted. Sam turned. He faced the cook as he came up without hesitation, rope in hand. Dave slipped the noose about his neck and rubbed the dusty muzzle sunk against his hip.
“You ol’ fool, you!” he mouthed at him. “What you mean by running off this a-way? Didn’t you know that team weren’t no good without you? What did you reckon I was going to do, you pore ol’ son-of-a-gun?”
He ran his eye over the emaciated body; then his glance fell to his own shrunken outline.
“I reckon we’re both some thinner, Sam. And my feet’s awful sore. What you need is corn. Here, Charlie, gimme that ‘morale’!”
Staked out with the nosebag over his head, the mule munched dully on the life-giving grain, while Dave prepared dinner and Charlie moved from point to point on the plain with a rifle, earning half a month’s pay every time he got near a horse. Charlie began to figure he would be a rich cowman some day.
Two hours later the men were smoking in the peace and content of hard work well done, when Sam walked stiffly to the end of his rope. By straining on it he could just reach the edge of the campfire. Dave rose up on his elbow.