On the third day the horse that Conacher rode sickened mysteriously. On the following morning it was incapable of bearing him. Loseis shook her head ominously.
“It is a sort of distemper that attacks them in the summer,” she said. “He will be sick for weeks. We might as well leave him. The others may catch it from him.”
So Conacher was obliged to set out on foot. The sick horse screamed piteously upon being left behind; and attempted to follow; but fell down in the grass, where he lay struggling feebly and watching them with raised head until they passed out of sight. They could not now hope to make more than thirty or forty miles a day, though all took turns in riding. And still there was no suggestion of their approach to a great river. The prairie rolled on as before. As far as Conacher could tell they had not yet even passed the crown of the watershed. They all had their sickening moments of doubt. Suppose there was no river?
Loseis’ worst prognostications were fulfilled. The other two horses sickened. By the sixth day they were all on foot. Mary-Lou’s moccasins wore through; and they had nothing out of which to make new ones. Fortunately both Loseis and Conacher wore boots. The prairie which looked so smooth made rough walking for humans, and their progress was cut down, Conacher figured, to between twenty and twenty-miles [missing or incorrect word] a day. The eighth day passed without any sign of the river of promise. Conacher estimated that they had covered nearly three hundred miles.
They had met with no game on the prairie except the ubiquitous chickens. Conacher was averse to wasting his precious bullets on such small fowl—it is very easy to miss a prairie chicken with a rifle; consequently they had depended on the meat and fish brought by Mary-Lou. On the seventh day it was exhausted, and they ate chicken. On that miserable eighth day some bad fairy waved a wand, and the chicken disappeared from the prairie. During the entire day Conacher did not obtain a shot. Consequently they went supperless to bed.
He was up at sunrise, ranging the prairie while the girls slept. But with no luck. There was nothing living in sight except the gophers who gained the shelter of their burrows ere he could come close enough to hope to hit them with his clumsy gun. In desperation he did shoot at gophers at last, only to plug the earth. When he returned to camp, the girls, having heard the sound of his gun, awaited him with anticipatory smiles, and he had the bitterness of showing them his empty hands. There was no breakfast.
On this first morning it was easy to turn it into a joke.
“Anyway, I’m sick of meat,” said Loseis.
“My people lak go ’ongry for awhile,” said Mary-Lou. “Mak’ the big feed taste better bam-bye.”
“Well, it’ll save a lot of time,” said Conacher with a sheepish grin. He felt responsible for their plight.