you drink any of it you find it makes you
ill."

"You've had that experience?" said the doctor.

"More'n once, sir," replied Griggs, "and it aren't nice. Which way do
you mean to go to-day, sir?"

"Straight for the mountains," replied the doctor.

"Humph!" grunted Griggs. "Won't get there in one journey."

"No," replied the doctor, scanning the beautiful elevation through his
glass, "but I think we might do what we can in the way of selecting
another camp to which we can move a day or two later."

"Yes, we can do that, sir. But what about here?"

"I should set up the tent here before we start," suggested Wilton.

"What for, sir?" asked Griggs sharply.

"It will be a big white object for our guidance on our way back."

Griggs shook his head and smiled.

"We shall take our bearings, and be able to find our camp again. The
water here will do for one big mark when we're yonder on the hills. If
you set up that tent with no one to mind it, the mules won't be long
before they come rubbing themselves against the ropes and upsetting it,
for one thing. Another is, that if a roving band of mounted Indians
came along they'd be down upon it at once to see what there was worth
taking."

"But surely there are no mounted Indians about here?" said Ned eagerly.

"Maybe no, maybe yes, my lad. I don't know that there are, and I don't
know that there aren't. Here's plenty of room for them, and a nice
country where there's water and perhaps game. Likely enough there may
be Indians. For they're here to-day and a hundred miles off to-morrow,
roving about in search of eatables."

"Yes," said the doctor gravely, "and the thought of the life they lead
is encouraging to me."

"Encouraging?" cried Bourne and Wilton together.

"Certainly. I have been a good deal exercised in my mind about the
failing of our provisions forcing us at last to turn back, but if we
follow the example of the Indians there is no reason why we, so long as
we have sufficient ammunition, should not be able to keep on for years
if it were necessary. What one band can do, surely another can."

"That's what you think, then, is it, sir?" said Griggs sharply.

"Yes; why do you speak like that?"

"Only because I'm glad you see fully what we've got to do, sir, and are
ready to do it."

"But we must husband our stores," said Bourne.

"Of course, sir," said Griggs, with his eyes twinkling. "We will, as
long as they'll stop to be husbanded; but th