Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert Part 11

The girls, while Ping was preparing a light supper for them, set to work to pitch the tents. Carrying canvas buckets, Hippy and the guide then hurried to the water hole.

"It won't do to wait for the water, for it has a habit, in this country, of suddenly disappearing while you wait," explained Hi.

"Yes, but where's the water?" wondered Lieutenant Wingate, as Hi got down in a hole that he had opened by breaking down the crust with his boots.

"Give me that blanket and I'll show you," he said, reaching for a canvas square, which he spread out in the opening and pressed down with his hands.

In a few moments water began seeping up through the blanket, which was so placed that it was lower in the middle than at the sides.

"That beats me," marveled Hippy. "How did you know there was water here?"

"I didn't. I knew where I found it the last time I was this way, but that didn't mean it would be here this time. These desert underground streams s.h.i.+ft their courses almost as often as the wind does. Hand me a bucket."

Two buckets were finally filled and pa.s.sed up to Hippy.

"Water the ponies first. Give them only a little at first. They're too warm to drink their fill. When you come back bring the red buckets for water for us to drink," directed the guide.

Hippy, marveling at the ways of the desert, took the buckets and began watering the ponies. The two bucketfuls answered for four of them, and by the time he returned to the water hole Hi had two more bucketfuls ready for him. In this way all the ponies and the burros were supplied with water, and Hi, working as fast as he could, filled all the buckets for the night's use of man and beast, then scrambled out of the water hole.

"I hope we still find water here in the morning," he said.

"What if we do not?"

"Then we go without it, Lieutenant. One has to get used to thirst out here. You will see many a dry day before we finish our journey."

"Hm--m--m--m!" mused Hippy reflectively.

"Him come along," cried Ping Wing in a shrill voice, meaning that supper was ready, as the two men with their water buckets entered the camp.

"Four meals a day, eh?" grinned Hippy. "That is what I call the proper thing. I shall have to readjust myself so as to know how to live on four meals a day, but I am so hungry now that you can see right through me."

"We always could," teased Miss Briggs.

Now that the supper was ready, Ping piled more sagebrush on the fire and made a blaze that lighted up the little desert camp, its white tents standing out clearly defined in the light and appearing very small. Just beyond them the "crunch, crunch" of the ponies' teeth as they tore at the sage, which was to be their only food for a long time to come, could be heard, and it really was a soothing sound in this sea of silence and mystery.

There was bacon, biscuit with honey, and tea for their midnight luncheon. Emma and Hippy were first to try the bacon, but no sooner did they taste of it than they began to choke and sputter.

"Awful! What stuff are you feeding me?" cried Emma.

"Yes, some one is trying to poison us," groaned Hippy.

"What's the matter?" grinned the guide.

"It is the most awful stuff I ever put in my mouth, so bitter I simply can't eat it," complained Emma.

Grace smiled. She had nibbled at a slice of bacon and knew instantly what caused its bitter taste.

"Alkali," the guide told them. "Everything you eat and drink out here will taste bitter, but time you will not notice the bitter taste."

Emma uttered a suppressed wail. There were complaints from each of the other girls, except Grace, who, though she disliked that bitter taste as much as did her companions, was too plucky to voice her dislike.

"You must make certain that your tents are cleared of tarantulas before you take off your shoes, folks. If you get out of bed in the night be certain to put your shoes on first so you do not step on one of the pesky fellows," warned the guide.

"Any other cheerful little features about this camp that you can think of?" asked Hippy solemnly.

"Plenty, but I'll tell you about them some other time, unless you discover them for yourselves before then."

"I wish to goodness that I had gone to the seash.o.r.e where the worst that can happen to one is to be pinched by a crab or to drown in the surf," complained Emma.

A laugh cleared the atmosphere, and the girls, immediately after supper, prepared for bed, which they welcomed eagerly; and soon after that the camp settled down for the night, enveloped in deep and profound silence. A gentle breeze, sweetly cool after the burning heat of the day, crept in and lulled the tired Overlanders to sleep.

Now and then the silence was broken by the far off echoing scream of a prowling coyote or the distant hoot of an owl. But the Overlanders did not hear. They were sleeping soundly, storing up energy for the coming day, a day that was destined to be filled with hards.h.i.+ps and excitement and peril for them.

CHAPTER VIII

CALLERS DROP IN

Heat waves were s.h.i.+mmering over the eastern horizon when the Overland girls awakened next morning. The guide had been up since daybreak fetching "bitter water," as the girls called it, and serving it to the ponies and burros.

"Whew!" exclaimed Elfreda. "This looks like a warm day."

"Regular Russian bath day," agreed Anne Nesbit.

"I fear we girls will not have any complexions left after this journey," added Nora Wingate. "I wonder if that husband of mine is still asleep?"

"Hippy is always sleeping--when he isn't awake or eating,"

declared Emma ambiguously, causing a laugh at her expense.

"You folks made a mistake that time," chuckled Hippy from the adjoining tent.

"Everybody makes mistakes. That's why they put erasers on lead pencils," retorted Emma quickly.

"Good night!" they heard Hippy Wingate mutter, after which he relapsed into silence, while a shout of laughter greeted Emma's sally.

"Come, girls, turn out," urged Grace. "We have a day ahead of us."

Breakfast was ready when they emerged from their tents, and this time they ate without complaining of the bitter taste of food and water.

The sun came up while they were at breakfast, lighting up the cheerless landscape and whitening the sands. The mountain range where they first camped had disappeared in the distance and they were alone in the burning silence. Ahead, here and there, ugly b.u.t.tes lay baking in the morning heat, some showing a variety of dazzling colors, others a dull leaden gray.

"How far do we go to-day, Hi?" questioned Lieutenant Wingate.

"Until we find water," was the brief, but significant reply.

After breakfast, and while Ping, singing happily, was striking camp and packing the equipment on the burros, Mr. Lang and Hippy brought in and saddled the ponies, turning each one over to its rider as it was made ready; then the start was made. Hippy Wingate, the girls observed, held a small package under one arm, which he guarded so carefully that it aroused the curiosity of his companions, but Hippy merely grinned in response to their questioning.