D. He shall have his share now and you can drink
yours later."

The sun had set. The afterglow was fading, and in a few minutes, when the
light was quite out of the heavens, Jack announced that it was time for
Prather to start.

"How shall I know the direction?" Prather asked.

"Trust P.D. He will find it," said Jack. He held the stirrup for Prather
to mount with the relief of freeing himself at last from the clinging
touch of the phantoms. "You are perfectly safe. In two days you will be
mounting the steps of a Pullman on your way to New York."

"And you? What--what are you going to do?" Prather inquired hectically,
with a momentary qualm of shame.

"Why, if Firio and I are to have water to make coffee for breakfast we
must take the water-hole!" Jack answered, as if this were a thing of
minor importance beside seeing Prather safely on his way. "Be sure not to
overwater P.D. after the night's ride, and don't overdo him on the final
stretch, and turn him over to Galway when you arrive. Home, P.D.! Home!"
he concluded, striking that good soldier with the flat of his hand on the
buttocks. And P.D. trotted away into the night.

Jack listened to the hoof-beats on the soft earth dying away and then
crept up beside Firio on the bank and gazed into the black wall in the
direction of the cotton-woods. A slight glow in the basin, which must be
Leddy's camp-fire, was the only sign of life in the neighborhood. The
silence was profound. He had not spoken a word to Firio. With one
problem forever solved, he was absorbed in another.

"Leddy drinks, eats, waits!" whispered Firio. "If we try to go they
hunt us down!"

"Yes," said Jack.

"And we not go, eh? We stay? We fight?"

"For water, Firio, yes! Two against seven!"

"_Si_!" Firio had no illusions about the situation. "_Si_!" he repeated
stoically.

"And, Firio--" Jack's hand slipped with a quick, gripping caress onto
Firio's shoulder. An inspiration had come to the mind of action, just as
a line comes to a poet in a flash; as one must have come to the ancestor
many times after he had gone into a tight place trusting to his wits and
his blade to bring him out. "And, Firio, we are going to change our base,
as the army men say--and change it before the moon rises. Jag Ear, we
shall have to leave you behind," he added, when they had dropped back to
the burro's side. "Just make yourself comfortable. Leddy surely wouldn't
think of killing so valuable a member of the non-co