curbing their horses' impatience with tight-drawn reins. They had
thought to have reached the brown hills and shade before the day's
heat was upon them. But now it was already intense, stifling, awaking
from its light doze almost as the sun rolled upward across the low
horizon.

And now the temptation upon Roger Hapgood, urging him to turn
back--back toward the little town, hateful yesterday, but spelling now
at least the courtyard to comfort--was so strong that he would not
have had strength to resist had he not realized that the ride back
would be longer than the ride on to water. He made no answer to
Conniston's sallies, but, sullenly silent, clung to his reins with one
hand, to the horn of his saddle with the other, lifting his head now
and again to gaze with red-rimmed eyes ahead along the dusty, flat
stretch of the desert, for the most part head down, the picture of
misery.

Conniston, feeling the heat riotous in his own veins, feeling the ache
of fatigued muscles, felt a sudden pity for Hapgood. And still, even
through his own discomfort, there laughed always a certain something
in his buoyant nature which saw the humorous in the adventure.

It was late in the forenoon when they saw a clump of green willows,
and ten minutes later came to a roadside spring and watering-trough.
Hapgood threw an aching leg over the horn of his saddle and slipped
stiffly to the ground. Conniston dismounted after him, holding the two
horses' reins as they thrust their dry muzzles deep into the clear
water. Hapgood, applying his mouth to the pipe from which the water
ran into the trough, drank long and thirstily, and then, dragging his
feet heavily, went to the clump of willows and dropped to the ground