their eyes riveted to the hills. Once Lowrie turned his head to mark
the position of the sun. Once Sandersen, in the grip of some passion of
remorse or of fear of death, bowed his head with a strange moan. But,
aside from that, there was no sound or sign between them until, hardly
an hour and a half after leaving Sinclair, they found water.

At first they thought it was a mirage. They turned away from it by
mutual assent. But the horses had scented drink, and they became
unmanageable. Five minutes later the animals were up to their knees in
the muddy water, and the men were floundering breast deep, drinking,
drinking, drinking.

After that they sat about the brink staring at one another in a stunned
fashion. There seemed no joy in that delivery, for some reason.

"I guess Sinclair will be a pretty happy gent when he sees us coming
back," said Sandersen, smiling faintly.

There was no response from the others for a moment. Then they began to
justify themselves hotly.

"It was your idea, Quade."

"Why, curse your soul, weren't you glad to take the idea? Are you going
to blame it on to me?"

"What's the blame?" asked Lowrie. "Ain't we going to bring him water?"

"Suppose he ever tells we left him? We'd have to leave these parts
pronto!"