"I hope we still find water here in the morning," he said.
"What if we do not?"
"Then we go without it, Lieutenant. One has to get used to thirst out here. You will see many a dry day before we finish our journey."
"Hm—m—m—m!" mused Hippy reflectively.
"Him come along," cried Ping Wing in a shrill voice, meaning that supper was ready, as the two men with their water buckets entered the camp.
"Four meals a day, eh?" grinned Hippy. "That is what I call the proper thing. I shall have to readjust myself so as to know how to live on four meals a day, but I am so hungry now that you can see right through me."
"We always could," teased Miss Briggs.
Now that the supper was ready, Ping piled more sagebrush on the fire and made a blaze that lighted up the little desert camp, its white tents standing out clearly defined in the light and appearing very small. Just beyond them the "crunch, crunch" of the ponies' teeth as they tore at the sage, which was to be their only food for a long time to come, could be heard, and it really was a soothing sound in this sea of silence and mystery.
There was bacon, biscuit with honey, and tea for their midnight luncheon. Emma and Hippy were first to try the bacon, but no sooner did they taste of it than they began to choke and sputter.
"Awful! What stuff are you feeding me?" cried Emma.