said the doctor.

"Nay, sir; I fancy that it was when I hooked the chain. I fancy I must have caught him fast and dragged him close up."

"And then, in resentment," said the doctor, "the beast twined itself up tightly;--just like an eel on a night-line, boys," he added.

"Did you cut it away, Griggs?" asked Chris.

"Yes. I just slipped the point of my knife in between two of his coils twice over, gave a sharp push, and he dropped down wriggling at once."

"Did you see many more?" asked Ned.

"Nary one, my lad."

"A bucket here," said the doctor. "Let's run out a pannikin from one keg for each of the mustangs."

"Won't want a bucket then, sir."

"Nonsense, man! We can't give the mustangs their drop out of a tin. I want it poured into the bottom of the bucket so that each can suck it up to the last drop."

"I see, sir," cried Griggs, and as the tompion-like stop was unscrewed from the bung-hole of a keg, a shallow iron bucket was cast loose from one of the mule's loads, the noise in the darkness nearly driving the whole team frantic, connecting the rattle of the handle as they did with water.

But they were kept back while the mustangs each took their tiny portions, uttering a piteous remonstrance-like sigh as the bucket was withdrawn again from its muzzle; and this done, the mules had their turn, two of them proving outrageous after getting their taste of water, Skeeter, as Griggs called him, seizing the edge of the bucket with his teeth and holding on till a sharp crack on the flank made him let go.

"Poor brutes!" said Ned's father. "It seems very hard upon them. Such a tiny drop each."

"Yes," replied the doctor, "but a score of these tiny drops make a hole in the contents of the keg. There, I don't think we have been unmerciful to our beasts. They have had the first turn. It is ours now."

The animals were driven back, and after the first keg had been as carefully closed up as if its contents were fine gold-dust, the second was opened, and a tin mug filled by the doctor, Wilton holding the little cask.

"Now, Ned, you're the youngest," cried the doctor.

"Oh, you have some first, sir," said the boy.

"Tip it up," cried the doctor fiercely. "My good lad, you don't know what agony it is to practise self-denial and etiquette at a time like this."

The doctor spoke so fiercely that his words, combined with the intense thirst from which he suffered, made the boy raise the cup to his lips, to feel a thrill of delight as the lukewarm water trickled down his parched throat.

The next moment, thanks to his father's teaching, he literally dragged the cup from his lips and thrust it in the face of Chris, who was looking at him by the lanthorn light, feeling in agony, and as if his eyes were starting out of his head.

"No, no!" he panted.

"Drink!" yelled Ned savagely.

"Yes, drink, boy!" cried the doctor. "Quick!"

The doubling of the emphatic command made Chris obey, and he too sighed bitterly as he drained the last drop from the half-filled mug and pa.s.sed it back.

"Quick, no more ceremony," cried the doctor, "or I shall be ready to forget myself, for I'm half mad with thirst. Fill up, Wilton. Now, Bourne, drink."

"No, no; you first."

"Drink!" roared the doctor, in a tone which startled his son, and without another word Ned's father half emptied the mug and handed it to Wilton, who hurriedly drained it, and began to fill it once more.

"My turn to order now," he cried, holding it to the doctor. "We've all had a taste now, Lee; you drink all that."

Griggs did not move a muscle, but stood firm, holding the lanthorn now; but he gave a side glance at the glistening cup as the doctor drank, suffering agony the while, but only to heave a sigh of thankfulness on seeing that his leader only swallowed half and then pa.s.sed him the remainder.

"I thought dad wouldn't forget him," whispered Chris to Ned, and perhaps it might have been only a couple of drops of the water that had gone the wrong way, but certainly something like a couple of tears glistened for a few moments in Chris's eyes.

"Thank ye, doctor," said Griggs hoa.r.s.ely, and the next moment there was a sound like _glug_--_glug_!! and the tin mug was empty.

"Must have another drink round; eh, doctor?" said Wilton.

"Drink?" was the reply. "Well, yes; fill up. We must find water to-morrow."

Half a cupful was pa.s.sed to each then, swallowed with avidity, and then Wilton sighed as he helped to secure the tompion in its place.

"Now," cried the doctor, "we all want to lie down and rest, but I'm sure we should none of us sleep for thinking of water. The night is fairly clear, and I feel that I can guide you up the rising ground, so I propose that we go on at once."

"Yes, yes," cried Bourne; "on at any cost, to get away from this horrible nest of reptiles."

"But suppose we go blundering on among them," cried Wilton. "What do you say, Griggs?"

"I say let's get on, sir, for if we stop here we shall be getting no nearer water, and we shall be having the snakes coming to see where we are for killing that last one of their friends."

To get away from the horrors that haunted the spot was the great desire of all, and with the doctor and Griggs leading, the first a little in advance, and bearing the light, so as to avoid the blocks of stone projecting from the sand, the little party went slowly on hour after hour, ready to stop again and again to throw themselves down and rest.

But no one dared to do so lest the jar given to the earth should send some of the poisonous reptiles to the surface in search of the enemy that had intruded upon the solitude which they seemed from their numbers to have marked down for their own domain.

The greater part of that night seemed to the two boys like a feverish dream, during which they had been compelled by some strange force to keep plodding on through horrors unspeakable, and tortured by a thirst that was maddening.

At times, where the stones lay thick, hardly a word was spoken, but now and again Chris would begin questioning his companion loudly, eager to obtain his opinion as to whether he did not think it must be nearly morning.

But Ned's answers were not encouraging. There was no romance in them; they were too near the truth to suit Chris, and he liked them the less because at heart he felt that they must be correct and his own hopes too sanguine. But all the same he clung to his own ideas--they were so tempting. They were that with daylight they should have reached the end of the wild desert, and that from high up on some sunlit slope they would be gazing down into a broad green valley--some natural paradise through which flowed a rippling stream.

He described his notions to Ned, who seemed to be listening attentively in the darkness, and now and then said "Oh," or "Ah, yes;" but all the time he was clinging involuntarily to his saddle, his head nodding forward again and again, only to be brought back to the perpendicular with a jerk, while Chris was too drowsy himself to notice it, as he went muttering on.

"It won't be the place where the gold city and temple are, Ned," he said; "but it will be just the spot where we can rest for a few days."

"Ah!" said Ned.

"There'll be fish in that river, you know," said Chris--"salmon that have come up out of the Pacific; and we can spear them after we've drunk all we want, and bathed till we've soaked all this horrible dryness out of our skins. All along by the river too there'll be park-like meadows--meadows--green meadows. Do you hear?" Ned grunted.

"And in those park-like prairie places there are sure to be droves of buffalo. Beef--do you hear?--beef!"

Chris's head bowed down as if he were going to lay his forehead upon his mustang's neck; but the thought of roast beef woke him up again, and he clung a little more tightly with his knees and kept on with his muttering.

"I say, don't go to sleep, Ned," he said, as he saw his companion follow his own example and bow low. "I feel as sure as sure that's the sort of place we shall come to. There'll be great spreading fir-trees too, such as Griggs talked about seeing up north in the Rockies--trees with boughs that will keep off the sun and rain, eh?"

"Ah!" grunted Ned.