"If I were fifteen, and had my rifle, I would not be afraid of anything," said Walter.
"But in that case we would not need to go after arrow points," said the Indian boy.
They climbed all day in a bewildering waste of boulders and scrubby trees. They could see Winnedumah shining whitely on the ridge ahead, but when they had gone down into the gully with great labor, and up the other side, there it stood whitely just another ridge away.
"It is like the false water in the desert," said Walter. "It goes farther from you, and when you get to it there is no water there."
"It is magic medicine," said Indian Joe. "No good comes of going against medicine."
"If you are afraid," said Walter, "why do you not say so? You may go back if you like, and I will go on by myself."
Joe would not make any answer to that. They were hot and tired, and awed by the stillness of the hills. They kept on after that, angry and apart; sometimes they lost sight of each other among the boulders and underbrush. But it seemed that it must really have been as one or the other of them had said, for when they came out on a high mesa presently, there was no Winnedumah anywhere in sight. They would have stopped then and taken counsel, but they were too angry for that, so they walked on in silence, and the day failed rapidly, as it will do in high places. They began to draw near together and to be afraid. At last the Indian boy stopped and gathered the tops of bushes together, and began to weave a shelter for the night, and when Walter saw that he made it large enough for two, he spoke to him.
"Are we lost?" he said.
"We are lost for to-night," said Joe, "but in the morning we will find ourselves."
They ate dried venison and drank from the wicker bottle, and huddled together because of the dark and the chill.