"Well, I suppose you could put it that way. Anyway they resolved to go back to their homes in Greece, across mountains, rivers and deserts. Xenophon, who led them, wrote the account of it."
"Then I'll bet that Xenophon looms up pretty big in the tellin' o' it."
"No, he was a modest man, Tom. But what I remember best about the story, they were always marching so many parasangs, so many days' journey to a well of water. It gets to be a sort of fascination with you. You are always wondering how many parasangs they'll march before they come to water. And sometimes you've a kind of horrible fear that there won't be any water to come to, and it keeps you keyed up."
"Same ez ef you wuz in that sort o' condition yourself."
"Something like it."
"Well, mebbe we will be, an' jest you remember, young William, since them Greeks allers come to water, else Xenophon who led them never would hev lived fur the tellin' o' it, that we'll allers come to water, too, even of we do hev to wait a week or two fur it. Cur'us how long you kin live after your tongue hez baked, your throat hez turned to an oven, an' your lips hev curled up with the heat."
"I imagine, Tom," said Boyd, "we're not going to suffer like that."
"I jest wanted to let young William know the worst fust an' he kin fortify himself accordin'."
"I'm prepared to suffer what the rest of you suffer," said the lad.
"The right spirit," said Brady, heartily. "We'll be Davids and Jonathans, cleaving the one unto the other, and now, as we're about to emerge from the last bit of forest I suggest that we fill all our water bottles from this brook among the trees. Thomas has talked so feelingly about thirst that I want to provide against it. We will not strike here the deserts that are to be found in the far south, but we may well have long periods without water free from alkali."