They did not budge for half an hour. During that time Kendric did a deal of hard thinking. Their plight was still far from satisfactory. No food, no water, no horses, and in the heart of a land of which they know nothing except that it was hard and bleak and closely patrolled by Zoraida's riders. That they could succeed now in eluding pursuit for the rest of the night seemed assured. But tomorrow? Where there was one man looking for them now there would be ten tomorrow. And there were the questions of food and water. Above all else, water.
At last, when it was very still all about them, they moved on again. They climbed over the rocks and further up the cañon. Here there were more trees and thicker darkness, and their progress was painfully slow. They skirted patches of thorny bushes; they went on hands and knees up sharp inclines. They stopped frequently, panting and straining their ears for some sound to tell them of a pursuer; they went on again, side by side or with Kendric ahead, breaking trail.
"We'll have to dig in somewhere before dawn," said Jim once while they rested. "Where we can stick close during daylight tomorrow."
Betty merely nodded; all such details were to be left to him. It was his clear-cut task to take care of her; just how he did it was not Betty's concern. So they went on, left the cañon where there was a way out, made their toilsome way over a low ridge and slid and rolled down into the next ravine. And here, at the bottom, they found water. A thin trickle from a spring, wending its way down to the larger stream in the valley. They lay down, side by side, and drank. Then they sat back and looked at each other in the starlight.
"Betty," said Jim impulsively, "you're a brick!"
"Am I?" said Betty. And by her voice he knew that she was pleased.
"We're not as far from the house as I'd like," he said presently. "But it will take time to locate a decent hiding place, and we've got to stick within reach of water."
To all of this Betty agreed; personally she'd like to be a thousand miles away from this hideous place, but they would have to make the best of things. That willingness of hers to accept conditions without bemoaning her fate was what had drawn from him his impulsive epithet.
"The thing to do, then," said Kendric, getting up "is to look for a likely place to spend a long day. And it may be more than one day."
Then Betty made her suggestion, offering it timidly, as though she were entering a discussion in which, rightly, she had no part: