better travel with me the rest of the way?"

"I think we have seen the last of the Apaches. They do not range south
and west of here. Good-bye, sir."

"Good-bye, until we meet at Tyson's Wells."

The next morning, when the boys, Vic, and I were taking our places in
the ambulance, Mr. Hopkins and his men, Mr. Gray and Mr. Rosenberg,
approached us mounted. They informed me that they were going to La
Paz.

"The Ingins are gettin' a little too thick here," observed the
ranchman. "I find it diffikilt to git proper rest after a hard day's
work. Think I'll stay away until Uncle Sam's boys thin 'em out a
little more."

"Can I obtain a five or ten gallon keg of you, Mr. Hopkins?" I asked.
"Ours was accidentally smashed on the road."

"Haven't a keg to my name, lieutenant. One way 'n' ernuther all's been
smashed, give away, or lent."

The ride from the ranch to the edge of the desert plain was twelve
miles, a portion of it over a rugged ridge. To the point where we were
to ford the creek was two miles, and there the hired men, pack-mules,
and ranch cattle turned off on the Bill Williams Fork route to the
Rio Colorado.

Once on the level of the Xuacaxella our team broke into a brisk trot,
and we rolled along with a fair prospect of soon crossing the one
hundred miles between Date Creek and La Paz. Messrs. Gray, Rosenberg,
and Hopkins shortly turned into a bridle-path which led into a mine.
Before taking leave of us Mr. Gray told me that my camping-place for
the night would be at the point of the third mountain-spur which
jutted into the plain from the western range.

We had not travelled long before we realized our misfortune in having
smashed our water-keg. Each individual in our party possessed a
three-pint army canteen, which had been filled when we forded the
creek in the early dawn. These were to last us until evening, through
an exceedingly sultry day. Frank, Henry, and I did our best to
overcome our desire for water, but the younger boy could not refuse
the appeals of Vic, when she looked up with lolling tongue and
beseeching eyes to the canteens.

The men were the greatest sufferers, unless I except their horses.
Long before mid-day their canteens were empty and their mouths so dry
that articulation was difficult and they rarely spoke.

At five we arrived opposite the third spur, where we found a wand
sticking in the ground and holding in its cleft end a slip of paper.
It proved to be a note from Mr. Hudson