"No use camping," Bob Birnie told the boys gathered around
Step-and-a-Half's Dutch ovens. "The cattle won't stand. We'll
wear ourselves and them out trying to hold 'em-they may as
well be hunting water as running in circles. Step-and-a-Half,
keep your cooked grub handy for the boys, and yo' all pack up
and pull out. We'll turn the cattle loose and follow. If
there's any water in this damned country they'll find it."

Years afterwards, Buddy learned that his father had sent men
out to hunt water, and that they had not found any. He was
ten when this was discussed around a spring roundup fire, and
he had studied the matter for a few minutes and then had
spoken boldly his mind.

"You oughta kept your horses as thirsty as the cattle was,
and I bet they'd a' found that water," he criticized, and
was sent to bed for his tactlessness. Bob Birnie himself had
thought of that afterwards, and had excused the oversight by
saying that he had depended on the map, and had not foreseen
a three-day dry drive.

However that may be, that night was a night of panicky
desperation. Ezra walked beside the oxen and shouted and
swung his lash, and the oxen strained forward bellowing so
that not even Dulcie could sleep, but whimpered fretfully in
her mother's arms. Buddy sat up wide-eyed and watched for the
big river, and tried not to be a 'fraid-cat and cry like
Dulcie.