How the poor beasts suffered! Their tongues were actually covered with salt, and not a mouthful of water could they have as a relief from their distress.
Save for the absence of rain, it was a veritable tempest of thunder and lightning, lasting about twenty minutes; then the sun came out with more heat, as it seemed to me, than before, which but served to increase our desire for water.
When the sun was no more than three hours from setting, I strained my eyes ahead, hoping to see the end of this horrible journey, although mother had told me there was no possibility of our coming to water until late in the night, and I saw the foremost of the wagons leaving the white plain, and passing over what promised to be a good road, toward a rocky range.
Then I shouted aloud in my joy, that we would soon come to where it would be possible to quench our thirst.
A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT
For the moment mother believed I was right, but then Eben Jordan dampened our joy by telling us that we must ride over the ridge five or six miles, where were no signs of water, and then we would come upon another plain of salt, which was not less than twelve miles in width. Only after that had been crossed might we find ourselves in safety.
Ellen threw herself face downward upon the bed in the bottom of the wagon, and lay there as if in a fit of the sulks, while I crouched by mother's side, wondering how long it would be before death came, for I had grown so foolish in my sufferings that it was as if life was nearly at an end.