Not all the assistance we could give her seemed likely to get her to the top, she was in so nervous a state. In vain she implored us to leave her to her fate. Nothing but seeing us all begin to scramble down again to share it with her made her at last, in a fit of desperation, reach the top. When there, she sunk on the ground helpless, and we laid her at the foot of one of the palm trees, where she declared she would breathe her last sigh. The three elder girls now collected all the precious drops of water, putting them under bushes, covering them with sand, to prevent the powerful sun from evaporating the smallest quantity of such precious liquid.
Schillie and the boys prepared the guns and pistols, putting everything "handy," as they called it, for a siege. We snatched a hasty meal, not knowing when we might have another opportunity; then laying ourselves down, we hid snugly in the brushwood, seeing everything, yet utterly unseen ourselves.
Gatty.—"It's jolly fun being perched up here seeing all the country round. But what is the reason we have come up?"
Schillie (shortly).—"You were ordered to, that's enough."
Gatty (half whispering to the girls).—"The bear is out to-day. If I don't mind I shall get a scratch from its claws."
Schillie (overhearing).—"Bear or not, Miss Gatty, you will be so good as to keep a silent tongue in your head."
Gatty.—"If you please, little Mother, why?"
Mother.—"Why, Gatty, don't you perceive that if we continue to hide ourselves as we do now the enemy will never guess where we are. But if you chatter like any magpie, of course they will find us out."
Gatty.—"Well, I am ready to do anything reasonable and now that I have had a good reason given me, I'll be as mute as any mole."
Schillie.—"Who deems a mole like you worth a reason."