Part 33 (1/2)

”You needed the rest and I didn't!”

DeWitt rose and shook himself like a great dog, then looked at Rhoda wonderingly.

”And you don't look much done up! But you had no right to do such a thing! I told you to give me ten minutes. I feel like a brute. Lie down now and get a little sleep yourself.”

”Lie in the sun? Thank you, I'd rather push on to the camp and have some breakfast. How do you feel?”

”Much better! It was fine of you, dear, but it wasn't a fair deal.”

”I'll be good from now on!” said Rhoda meekly. ”What would you like for breakfast?”

DeWitt looked about him. Already the desert was a.s.suming its brazen aspect.

”Water will be enough for me,” he answered, ”and nothing else. I am seriously considering a rigid diet for a time.”

They both drank sparingly of the water in Rhoda's canteen.

”I have three shots in my Colt,” said DeWitt, ”but I want to save them for an emergency. But if we don't strike camp pretty soon, I'll try to pot a jack-rabbit.”

”We can eat desert mice,” said Rhoda. ”I know how to catch and cook them!”

”Heaven forbid!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed DeWitt. ”Let's start on at once, if you're not too tired.”

So they began the day cheerfully. As the morning wore on and they found no trace of the camp, they began to watch the canteen carefully.

Gradually their thirst became so great that the desire for food was quite secondary to it and they made no attempt to hunt for a rabbit.

They agreed toward noon to save the last few drops in the canteen until they could no longer do without it.

Hour after hour they toiled in the blinding heat, the strange deep blue of the sky reflecting the brazen light of the desert. In their careful avoiding of the mountain where they had rested at sunset the night before, they gradually worked out into a wide barren s.p.a.ce with dunes and rock heaps interchanging.

”This won't do at all,” said Dewitt at last, wearily. ”We had better try for any old mountain at all in the hope of finding water.”

They stood panting, staring at the distant haze of a peak. Trackless and tortuous, the way underfoot was incredibly difficult. Yet the distances melted in ephemeral slopes as lovely in their tints as they were accursed in their reality of cruelty. Rhoda, unaccustomed to day travel, panted and gasped as they walked. But she held her own fairly well, while DeWitt, sick and overstrained at the start, was failing rapidly.

”It's noon now,” said John a little thickly. ”You had better lie in the shade of that rock for an hour.”

”You sleep too!” pleaded Rhoda.

”I'm too hot to sleep. I'll wake you in an hour.”

When Rhoda awoke it was to see DeWitt leaning against the rock heap, his lips swollen, his eyes uncertain.

Weak and dizzy herself, she rose and laid her hand on John's, every maternal instinct in her stirring and speaking in her gray eyes.

”Come, dear boy, we mustn't give up so easily.”

John lifted the little hand to his cheek.

”I won't give up,” he said uncertainly. ”I'll take care of you, honey girl!”

”Come on, then!” said Rhoda. ”You see that queer bunch of cholla yonder? Let's get as far as that before we stop again!”