“The fools! The fools!” stormed Sandy, stamping his feet and glaring about him. “What do they expect us to do: shoot the horses or manufacture a lot of grass. The horses would surely starve if we turned back now. Ask them what they want us to do, Toma?”
“They say go on no good,” Toma replied patiently, after he had put the question. “Fellows say we must go back or pretty soon we all die. Fellows say this bad medicine land.”
“Bad medicine or not, I’m going to take it,” exploded Sandy. “You tell them, Toma, that if they don’t like our company or the place we’re going, they’re at perfect liberty to quit, like the miserable cowards they are, and return to the post.”
“No! No! Don’t tell them that,” Dick quickly interposed. “Ask them to remain with us for a day or two longer. We’ll be sure to find forage for the ponies before long.”
The packers protested but finally consented to remain. The little party pushed forward. On and on It went through the glaring sunlight that fell across that indescribable waste, Lee and Pierre shaking their heads and muttering to themselves. Just before nightfall, Dick and Toma, who were well in advance of the others, led the way down to a deep gulch, a sort of miniature canyon, that stretched away before them as far as the eye could see.
A few miles farther on, a tiny stream of pure, cold water gurgled down from a cleft in the rocks.
“Grass here!” Toma shouted. “Plenty grass here for many horses.”
Dick breathed a sigh of relief as he unslung his shoulder-pack. The horses came up at a brisk trot. Sandy, foot-sore and weary, the last person to reach the friendly oasis in that desert of rocks, grinned at sight of the green velvety strip that carpeted the entire floor of the gulch.
“They’ll gorge themselves and die of colic,” he predicted. “Just look at them, Dick!”
Dick laughed as he looked, then stepped back quickly, every ounce of blood gone from his face. A strange whirring sound through the air, and something had whisked past his head, striking the ground not more than ten feet behind him. One of the ponies had snorted in sudden fear, and Lee, the packer, reached out, plucking the still quivering shaft from the ground at his feet.