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"We may as well wait here as anywhere until the air clears sufficiently for us to get our bearings. We certainly must have passed the water-hole, and we would only be going farther and farther away if we pushed on." The dust settled rapidly. Splashes of sunshine showed here and there upon the basin and ridge, and it grew lighter.
And as Ramon spoke he touched the little crucifix on his breast. "Where did you find that?" asked Waring. "In the Placeta Burro; near the house of Pedro Salazar." Waring nodded. "Has your horse had water?" "No, señor. I did not stop." "Take him back to the water-hole. Or, here! Crawl in there and rest up. You are all in. I'll take care of the cayuse."
"There is a water-hole down there," said Jan, pointing to a dip in the ground not far off. "Yes," said Mrs. Gilbert, "I have been down there on horseback." The wagon was drawn off the road, and the weary oxen let loose, while we stretched ourselves on the cartels, but found the heat too great to let us recover any of our lost sleep.
I had a notion to get the flat ploughed and make a lucern-paddock of it. There was a good water-hole, under a clump of she-oak in the bend, and Mary used to take her stools and tubs and boiler down there in the spring-cart in hot weather, and wash the clothes under the shade of the trees it was cooler, and saved carrying water to the house.
We started, however, but, after travelling a short distance, finding the day far advanced, and our chance of finding water very doubtful, I determined to return to the water-hole which we had dug yesterday; about two miles and a half west by south.
When the morning was pretty well advanced the man was able to sit up; and in the course of a few days he was even able to accompany us to a water-hole, where we encamped, and stayed until he had practically recovered or, at any rate, was able to get about. But, you may be asking, all this time, did the man himself say nothing?
In order to keep the water-hole from freezing, they build a little house of reeds and mud over it. Sometimes, too, they store food in their lodges, especially the bulbous roots of certain plants. Muskrats, like beavers, use their tails for signalling danger, and when alarm causes them to dive they make a great noise, out of all proportion to their size.
Brown thought that one of them looked like a half-caste, and, as they had called us, as far as we understood, "whitefellows," I felt confirmed in my supposition, either that a white man was with them, or had lived among them very recently. I returned to the creek, in order to find another water-hole with water; but did not succeed, and had to encamp without it.
Then, while Jantje and 'Nkuku loosed the oxen and drove them to the water-hole, Ramoo Samee prepared a couple of cups of strong black coffee, which Mafuta carried into the tent; and as the Kafir looped back the flaps of the entrance, giving admission to a flood of brilliant sunlight and a brisk gush of cool, invigorating air, Dick stirred uneasily in his hammock, sat up, rubbed his eyes, and exclaimed, sleepily: "Hillo, Mafuta, surely it is not yet time to turn out, is it?
A few bushes and a stunted tree or two marked the spring that seeped down and fed a shallow water-hole where the horses drank thirstily. Applehead grinned and pointed to the now familiar hoofprints which they had followed so far. "I calc'late Ramon done a heap uh millin' around back there in that rocky arroyo," he observed, "'fore he struck off over here.
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