"Whoever's minding the stew might be interested in knowing that it's boiling over!"
"Coming! Coming!" cried Jonas and Na-che.
Darkness had now settled on the river. Enoch lay motionless until they called him in to supper. When he entered the cabin where the table was set, Curly cried, "Hello, Judge! Where've you been? I swear you look as if you'd been walking with a ghost."
"Perhaps I have," Enoch replied, grimly, as he took his seat.
Harden and Forrester, none too energetic, but shaven and in order, were at the table, where their story was eagerly picked from them.
Forrester had slept the first night in the cavern Enoch had noted. Harden never even saw the cavern but had spent the night crawling steadily toward the rim. At dawn, Forrester had made his way to the top of the butte by the same route Enoch had followed, and had seen Harden, a black speck moving laboriously on the southern horizon. He had not recognized him, and set out to overtake him. It was not until noon that he had done so. Even after he realized whom he was pursuing, he had not given up, for by that time he was rueing bitterly his hasty and ill-equipped departure.
None of the auditors of the two men needed detailed description either of the ardors of that trip nor of the embarrassment of the meeting. Nor did Forrester or Harden attempt any. After they had met they tried to keep a course that moved southwest. There were no trails. For endless miles, fissures and buttes, precipices to be scaled, mountains to be climbed, canyons to be crossed. For one day they were without water, but the morning following they found a pot hole, full of water. Weakness from lack of food added much to the peril of the trip, one cottontail being the sole contribution of the gun to their larder. They did not strike the trail until the day previous to their arrival in the camp.
"Have you had enough desert to last you the rest of your life?" asked
Curly as Harden ended the tale.
"Not I!" said Forrester, "nor Canyon either! I'm going to find some method of getting Milt to let me finish the trip with him."
"Me too," added Harden.