. Glover, we must reach those broken hills
before night in order to find water. Can you do it?"

"Reckon I kin jest about do it, 's the feller said when he walked to his
own hangin'," returned the suffering skipper.

The failing man marched so slowly and needed so many halts that they were
five hours in reaching the hills. It was now nightfall; they found a
bright little spring in a grassy ravine; and after a meagre supper, they
tried to stifle their hunger with sleep. Thurstane and Sweeny took turns
in watching, for smoke of fires had been seen on the mountains, and, poor
as they were, they could not afford to be robbed. In the morning Glover
seemed refreshed, and started out with some vigor.

"Och! ye'll go round the worrld," said Sweeny, encouragingly. "Bones can
march furder than fat anny day. Yer as tough as me rations. Dried grizzly
is nothin' to ye."

After threading hills for hours they came out upon a wide, rolling basin
prettily diversified by low spurs of the encircling mountains and bluish
green with the long grasses known as _pin_ and _grama_. A few deer and
antelopes, bounding across the rockier places, were an aggravation to
starving men who could not follow them.

"Why don't we catch some o' thim flyin' crachurs?" demanded Sweeny.

"We hain't got no salt to put on their tails," explained Glover, grinning
more with pain than with his joke.

"I'd ate 'em widout salt," said Sweeny. "If the tails was feathers, I'd
ate 'em."

"We must camp early, and try our luck at hunting," observed Thurstane.

"I go for campin' airly," groaned the limping and tottering Glover.

"Och! yees ud like to shlape an shnore an' grunt and rowl over an' shnore
agin the whole blissid time," snapped Sweeny, always angered by a word of
discouragement. "Yees ought to have a dozen o' thim nagurs wid their long
poles to make a fither bed for yees an' tuck up the blankets an' spat the
pilly. Why didn't ye shlape all ye wanted to whin yees was in the boat?"

"Quietly, Sweeny," remonstrated Thurstane. "Mr. Glover marches with great
pain."

"I've no objiction to his marchin' wid great pain or annyway Godamighty
lets him, if he won't grunt about it."

"But you must be civil, my man."

"I ax yer pardon, Liftinant. I don't mane no harrum by blatherin'. It's a
way we have in th' ould counthry. Mebbe it's no good in th' arrmy."

"Let him yawp, Capm," interposed Glover. "It's a way they hev, as he says.
Never see two Paddies togeth