“Nonsense, Bart,” exclaimed Lathrop, pointing to another name on the wide waste, which on the map represents sparsely settled New Mexico, “here’s a place called Cow Wells.”
“No, thar ain’t,” was Bart’s reply.
“There isn’t?”
“No.”
“But here it is on the map.”
“That’s all right; maps ain’t always ter be relied on any more than preachers. Cow Wells has gone dry. I reckon that’s why they called it Cow Wells. Everybody has moved away. It used ter be a mining camp.”
“Are you sure it’s abandoned?” asked Billy in a trembling voice.
“Sartain sure,” responded Bart. “I heard about it when I come through on my way east.”
“Then we can’t get a thing to drink till we reach Gitalong?”
“That’s about the size of it,” was the dispiriting reply of the old plainsman.