The War Trail: The Hunt of the Wild Horse

by Mayne Reid

Both were soon stripped of their skins, and butchered. A fire was kindled in the glade, and upon sword-blades and sapling spits the choice morsels of venison and “bear-meat” were roasted, and eaten, with many a jest about the “smoky kitchen.”

I was myself hungered. I shared the repast, but not the merriment. At that moment, no wit could have won from me a smile; the most luxurious table could not have furnished me with cheer.

A worse appetite than hunger assailed my companions, and I felt it with the rest—it was thirst: for hours all had been suffering from it; the long hard ride had brought it on, and now the smoke and the dry hot atmosphere increased the appetite till it had grown agonising, almost unendurable. No water had been passed since the stream we had crossed before day; there was none in the chapparal; the trackers saw none so far as they had gone: we were in a waterless desert; and the very thought itself renders the pang of thirst keener and harder to endure.

Some chewed their leaden bullets, or pebbles of chalcedony which they had picked up; others obtained relief by drinking the blood of the slaughtered animals—the bear and the antelope—but we found a better source of assuagement in the succulent stems of the cactus and agave.

The relief was but temporary: the juice cooled our lips and tongues, but there is an acrid principle in some of these plants that soon acted, and our thirst became more intense than ever.

Some talked of returning on the trail in search of water—of going back even to the stream—more than twenty miles distant.

Under such circumstances, even military command loses its authority. Nature is stronger than martial law.

I cared not if they did return; I cared not who left me, so long as the trappers remained true. I had no fear that they would forsake me; and my disapprobation of it checked the cheerless proposal, and once more all declared their willingness to go on.

Fortunately, at that crisis the smoke began to clear away, and the atmosphere to lighten up. The fire had burnt on to the edge of the chapparal, where it was now opposed by the sap-bearing trees. The grass had been all consumed—the conflagration was at an end.

Mounting our horses, we rode out from the glade; and following the trail a few hundred yards farther, we emerged from the thicket, and stood upon the edge of the desolated plain.