All they had to do was to cook their meat by one of these ready-made ovens, and then proceed to munch it.
They cleared a round space of the burnt grass, and lay down upon the bare ground with only blankets around them.
The trapper and circus-rider smoked their pipes, and the whole four talked together in low tones.
Then, feeling kind of tired, they lay over and slept, each one taking his turn as sentinel. The horses were hoppled, but there was no danger of their trying to get away, or of their straying, for there was no sweet grass to lure them on. Poor animals! they had to go supperless that night, but Ralph had resolved that they should pay up for it the next morning, for they should stay in among the trees on the other side of the river for a day or two, reds or no reds.
Morning broke at last, and as the gray light in the east began to herald its approach, the four whites mounted their steeds.
They found that during the night a cool wind had sprung up, and the baked ground had lost most of its heat; in fact, it was no hotter than it generally was in the middle of the day.
Away they started, heading directly for the river. The horses seemed to scent grass and water, for they exerted themselves to get forward a great deal more than they would have voluntarily done had their heads been turned in the opposite direction. The forest on the river bank was in plain view, and the four were rapidly approaching it.
The fire had burned down to the very edge of the water, and the contrast between the two shores was very striking; the one so bleak, black, and uninviting; the other so green and beautiful.
Upon reaching the water, the horses rushed in and began to drink heartily. Their riders were not long in following the example set by the horses, and they drank their fill too.
The stream was a branch of the Pecos, which the four whites had crossed just a few miles from the Comanche village.