Carhart pricked forward beside the guide.
“How much farther?” he asked.
“Well, it ain’t easy to say. We might be halfway there.”
“Halfway! Do you mean to say we’ve done only fifteen or eighteen miles in eight hours?”
“No, I didn’t say that.”
“Look here. How far is it to this pool!”
“Well, it’s hard to say.”
Carhart frowned and gave it up. The “thirty or thirty-five miles” had apparently been the roughest sort of an estimate.
Then the sun came up and beat upon them, and the sand began to radiate heat by way of an earnest of the day to follow; and then the wheels sank so deeply that the chief and Young Van tossed their reins to the guide and walked by the wagons to lend a hand now and then at the spokes. All the crazy energy of the evening was gone; men and mules were alike sullen and dispirited. Of the latter, many gave out and fell, and these were cut out and left there to die. So it went all through that blazing forenoon. They halted at twelve for lunch; but the dry bread and salt pork were hardly stimulating.