The girls quickly followed in the newly broken trail that was plainly seen, and reached the pool of water that was hidden by sagebushes and low lava-rock formation.
"I was so thirsty I just flattened myself out on the sand and filled up," laughed Ruth, sighing with repletion.
Every one, the Captain included, drank freely of the warm water, and Julie made a remark that it tasted brackish for such an active spring.
"Maybe that is due to the sand and sun," ventured Joan.
"While we are here, let"s give the horses a good drink," suggested Anne.
"That"s a good idea. Then they will be fresh for the trip across the sand," added Mrs. Vernon, starting back to get her horse and lead him to the spring.
But the horses refused to drink. They seemed thirsty enough, but every one of them backed away when the girls tried to make them bend their heads and drink.
"Why, isn"t that funny? Did you ever see them act like this before?"
asked Julie.
Just then Tally"s voice was heard calling for them, and the scouts jumped back into the saddles and rode forward. When they explained about the animals refusing the water, Tally looked serious.
"Show me drink!" commanded he, hurrying his horse over to the spring where the girls had drank.
One taste of the water and he made a wry face.
"You say you tak him?" asked the guide anxiously.
"Yes, lots of it," replied Ruth.
"Him mos" bad as dem bad land. Dat alkali water."
"What do you mean, Tally?" anxiously asked several girls.
"Him mak mucha ache here," explained Tally, placing his hands over his stomach and bending low with an agonized expression.
But the damage was done and so the scouts had to make the best of the case. Consequently, it was not long before Ruth was tied into knots and hardly able to sit in the saddle. The others, according to the quant.i.ty they had taken, were griped also. This did not add anything to the pleasure of the ride across the hot dry sand. But as long as they had essayed to cross that day, they kept on going slowly, hoping that with each cramp the scouts would begin to recover from the effects of the water.
Tally and his friend had been so certain that they would reach the other side of the desert before dark, that no one felt the slightest apprehension on that score. But the slowness with which the scouts had to travel made it dubious whether the riders would gain the other side before night.
Here and there, scattered over the desert sand, were queer craggy formations of lava, as if some volcanic eruption had thrown the heaps of burnt-out lava broadcast, to rest for ages upon the sea of waste.
There was a constant wind blowing across the desert, that carried the tiniest particles of sand with it, and these cut into faces and uncovered parts of the flesh of horses and riders. This stinging sand added no little to the misery of the suffering scouts.
The men and two guides felt very sorry for their companions, yet they had to keep on riding because it was necessary that they reach safety and shelter for that night. Thinking to divert their thoughts from their pain, Mr. Gilroy called attention to an unusually large crag of lava that stood up like a peak from the undulating sea of sand around it.
"Suppose you take a snapshot of that queer formation," suggested Mr.
Vernon, eager to abet his friend"s plan.
"You take it, Uncle--We have no need of pictures any more. This promises to be our last day on earth," moaned Julie, her face drawn in pain.
They were quite near to the crag when Tally leaned forward in his saddle and held a hand to his ear in the att.i.tude of one listening intently. Then he jumped from the horse and placed his ear flat down on the sand.
"What is it, Tally?" asked Mr. Gilroy, anxiously.
"Him blowin" bad! Can Messer Gilloy see much wind thoo gla.s.s?"
questioned the guide, hastily, pointing off to the left.
Mr. Gilroy adjusted the gla.s.ses and gazed in the direction Tally pointed. Even the suffering scouts watched his face with more anxiety than they had given to the cramps.
"I fear we are in for a sandstorm, girls. We must make for that friendly crag and cower behind its out-thrusts until the worst is over," quickly advised Mr. Gilroy, as soon as he had satisfied himself that that was what the approaching cloud meant.
The two Indians urged their horses forward, and soon all were crouching down behind the meagre shelter offered by the ragged lava points. The horses were so placed that their bodies formed a screen for the riders, and the blankets and packs were arranged on the exposed sides of the animals to protect their skins from the stinging sand.
The sound of the wind as the storm rushed towards them, was awesome, but when the full fury of the simoon came, the sand was drifted quickly all about the horses and refugees. The wind fairly shrieked, as it tried to tear away the blankets and start a stampede of the horses, but the Indians were able to calm the poor animals" fear.
The windstorm blew over as suddenly as it came, and the moment the going was safe, Tally led the horses from their drifts of sand and saddled them again. The riders crawled out, also, and shook themselves free of the clinging sand, then got back in their saddles, ready to ride onward.
The guides had not gone far, however, before they realized that the sandstorm had played greater havoc with the faint trail than with the riders. Such was the menace they now had to face: Night coming on apace, the scouts with cramps from alkali water, horses thirsty and sore from the beating of the simoon, and still an endless waste to cross, and no pathway to guide them.
"Oh, why did we ever come this way?" wailed Mrs. Vernon.
"We mos" over him," soothed Tally.
"Why, we"ve been riding for hours, and still there is nothing but sand to be seen," complained Julie.
"All same, us fin" end pooty soon," returned Omney.
They rode on without much conversation after that, as no one felt cheerful enough to talk. The sun had set beyond the rolling sea of sand, and yet no welcome sight of trees or dwellings could be seen before them. Nothing but sand, sand, sand!
After the sun had completely disappeared, a chill crept into the air and in ten minutes time every one was shivering with cold. Tally spoke in undertones to Mr. Gilroy, and he in turn said to his companions, "Let every one get the guide-rope out and tie it to the saddle in front of you."
"Why," called Joan.
"Anything left in Pandora"s box for us poor creatures?" asked Julie sorrowfully.
"Tally thinks one of us might stray, if the darkness overtakes us as suddenly as it falls on these deserts sometimes," said Mr. Gilroy.
Before every one was. .h.i.tched securely to the horse in front, so that a long line of riders traveled in file, a soughing wind could be heard coming from the north.
"Now, what can that be? More trouble?" demanded Mrs. Vernon.
"We hope not, but Tally says that quite often, after a hot sandstorm, it returns with sleet and hail; so we"d better be ready in case this chill portends such a comeback," explained Mr. Gilroy.
"What a fate! To drink poison, then fight a simoon, and at last to die in a desert blizzard!" cried Julie frantically trying to sit upright and defy the fates.
"Such is Rocky Mountain weather," Mr. Gilroy laughed gaily, as if he must inspire his friends with his bravado.
The oncoming blizzard had darkened the sky even before its time, but Tally kept bravely on, encouraging the horses with _coos_ and Indian words, until even the riders felt the spirit he manifested and felt braver to face what was impending.
Just before the sleet began to drive into their faces enough to blind them and shut out everything not two feet ahead, Mr. Gilroy shouted out cheerfully, "Ha! I see a light twinkling out ahead! We"ve reached a house, anyway!"
"Where? where?" asked a chorus of voices.