The journey was without adventure. Signs of Indians were seen, and this
made those of the train more watchful, but there was no encounter with
the red men of the desert, till an alarm was spread one morning of a
party of about twenty well-mounted Indians being seen approaching the
camp, just as it was being broken up for a farther advance towards the
mountains.
The alarm spread; men seized their rifles, and they were preparing to
fire upon the swiftly approaching troop, when Bart and Joses set spur to
their horses, and went off at full gallop, apparently to encounter the
enemy.
But they had not been deceived. Even at a distance Bart knew his friend
the Beaver at a glance, and the would-be defenders of the camp saw the
meeting, and the hearty handshaking that took place.
This was a relief, and the men of the expedition gazed curiously at the
bronzed, well-armed horsemen of the plains, who sat their wiry, swift
little steeds as if they were part and parcel of themselves, when they
rode up to exchange greetings with the Doctor.
From that hour the Beaver's followers took the place of the lancers,
leading the van and closing up the rear, as well as constantly hovering
along the sides of the long waggon-train, which they guarded watchfully
as if it were their own particular charge.
The Doctor placed implicit reliance in the chief, who guided them by a
longer route, but which proved to be one which took them round the base
of the two mountainous ridges they had to pass, and thus saved the
adventurers a long and arduous amount of toil with the waggons in the
rugged ground.
At last, when they were well in sight of the flat-topped mountain, and
the Doctor was constantly reining in his horse to sweep the horizon with
his glass in search of the Apaches, the chief rode up to say that he and
his men were about to advance on a scouting expedition to sweep the
country between them and the canyon, while the train was to press on,
always keeping a watchful look-out until their Indian escort returned.
The Beaver and his men scoured off like the wind, and were soon lost to
view, while that night and the next day the long train moved slowly over
the plain to avoid the dense clumps of prickly cactus and agaves,
suffering terribly from thirst, for what had been verdant when Bart was
there last was now one vast expanse of dust, which rose thickly in
clouds at the tramp of horse or mule.
The want of water was beginning to be severely felt; and as they went
sluggishly on, towards the second evening horses and mules with drooping
heads, and the cattle lowing piteously, Bart, as he kept cantering from
place to place to say a few encouraging words, knew that he could hold
out no hope of water being reached till well on in the next day, and he
would have urged a halt for rest, only that the Doctor was eager for
them to get as well on their way as possible.
Night at last, a wretched, weary night of intense heat, and man and
beast suffering horribly from thirst. The clouds had gathered during
the night, and the thunder rolled in the distance, while vivid flashes
of lightning illumined the plains, but no rain fell, and when morning
broke, after the most painful time Bart had ever passed, he found the
Doctor looking ghastly, his eyes bloodshot, his lips cracked, and that
even hardy Joses was suffering to as great an extent.
The people were almost in a state of mutiny, and ready to ask the Doctor
if he had dragged them to this terrible blinding waste to perish from
thirst; while it was evident that if water was not soon reached half the
beasts must fall down by the way.
As it was, numbers of the poor animals were bleeding from the mouth and
nostrils from the pricks received as they eagerly champed the various
plants of the cactus family.
"Let us push on," said the Doctor; "everything depends upon our getting
on to that shallow lake, for there is no water in the way;" but with
every desire to push on, the task became more laborious every hour,--the
cattle were constantly striving to stray off to right or left in search
of something to quench their maddening thirst, while, go where he would,
the Doctor was met by fierce, angry looks and muttered threats.
It would have been easy enough for the men to ride on to find water, but
there was always the fear that if they did, the Indians would select
just that moment for marching down and driving off their cattle and
plundering the waggons. Such an attack would have been ruin, perhaps
death to all, so there was nothing for it but to ride sullenly on in
company with the now plodding cattle, hour after hour.
"Why don't the Beaver come back, Joses?" cried Bart, pettishly. "If he
were here, his men could take care of the cattle and waggons, while we
went on for water. The lake can't be many miles ahead."
"A good ways yet," said Joses. "That mountain looks close when it's
miles away. Beaver's watching the Injuns somewheres, or he'd have been
back before now. Say, Master Bart, I'm glad we haven't got much farther
to go. If we had, we shouldn't do it."
"I'm afraid not," replied Bart, and then they both had to join in the
task of driving back the suffering cattle into the main body, for they
would keep straying away.
And so the journey went on all that day through the blinding, choking
dust and scorching heat, which seemed to blister and sting till it was
almost unbearable.
"Keep it up, my lads," Bart kept on saying. "There's water ahead. Not
much farther now."
"That mountain gets farther away," said one of the newcomers. "I don't
believe we shall ever get there."
This was a specimen of the incessant complaining of the people, whom the
heat and thirst seemed to rob of every scrap of patience and endurance
that they might have originally possessed.
But somehow, in spite of all their troubles, the day wore on, and Bart
kept hopefully looking out for a glimpse of the water ahead.
They ought to have reached it long before, but the pace of the weary
oxen had been most painfully slow. Then the wind, what little there
was, had been behind them, seeming as out of the mouth of some furnace,
and bringing back upon them the finely pulverised dust that the cattle
raised.
At last, towards evening, the sky began again to cloud over, and the
mountain that had appeared distant seemed, by the change in the
atmosphere, to be brought nearer to them. Almost by magic, too, the
wind fell. There was a perfect calm, and then it began to blow from the
opposite quarter, at first in soft puffs, then as a steady, refreshing
breeze, and instantly there was a commotion in the camp,--the cattle set
off at a lumbering gallop; the mules, heedless of their burdens,
followed suit; the horses snorted and strained at their bridles, and
Joses galloped about, shouting to the teamsters in charge of the
waggons, who were striving with all their might to restrain their
horses.
"Let them go, my lads; unhitch and let them go, or they'll have the
waggons over."
"Stampede! stampede!" some of the men kept shouting, and all at once it
seemed that the whole of the quadrupeds were in motion; for, acting upon
Joses' orders, the teams were unhitched, and away the whole body swept
in a thundering gallop onward towards the mountain, leaving the waggons
solitary in the dusty plain.
Every now and then a mule freed itself of its pack, and began kicking
and squealing in delight at its freedom, while the cattle tossed their
horns and went on in headlong gallop.
For once the wind had turned, the poor suffering beasts had sniffed the
soft moist air that had passed over the shallow lake, and their unerring
instinct set them off in search of relief.
There was no pause, and all the mounted men could do was to let their
horses keep pace with the mules and cattle, only guiding them clear of
the thickest part of the drove. And so they thundered on till the dusty
plain was left behind, and green rank herbage and thickly growing
water-plants reached, through which the cattle rushed to the shallow
water at the edge of the lake.
But still they did not stop to drink, but rushed on and on, plashing as
they went, till they were in right up to their flanks. Then, and then
only, did they begin to drink, snorting and breathing hard, and drawing
in the pure fresh water.
Some bellowed with pleasure as they seemed to satisfy their raging
thirst; others began to swim or waded out till their nostrils only were
above the surface; while the mules, as soon as they had drunk their
fill, started to squeal and kick and splash to the endangerment of their
loads. The horses behaved the most soberly, contenting themselves with
wading in to a respectable distance, and then drinking when the water
was undisturbed and pure, as did their masters; the Doctor, Joses, and
Bart bending down and filling the little metal cups they carried again
and again.
It was growing dark as they turned from the shallow water of the lake,
the mules following the horses placidly enough, and the lumbering cattle
contentedly obeying the call of their masters, and settling themselves
down directly to crop the rich rank grasses upon the marshy shores.
A short consultation was held now, and the question arose whether they
had been observed by Indians, who might come down and try to stampede
the cattle.
The matter was settled by one-half the men staying to guard them, while
the other half went back to fetch up the waggons, the mule-drivers
having plenty to do in collecting the burdens that had been kicked off,
but which the mules submitted patiently enough to have replaced.
Still it was long on towards midnight before the waggons had all been
drawn up to the shores of the lake, whose soft moist grasses seemed like
paradise to the weary travellers over the desolate, dusty plains; and no
sooner had Bart tethered Black Boy, and seen him contentedly cropping
the grass, than, forgetful of Indians, hunger, everything but the fact
that he was wearied out, he threw himself down, and in less than a
minute he was fast asleep.