The next Stacy knew was when he awakened to find himself being hauled out by one leg.
"Here, what are you doing? Leggo my foot."
"Lunch is ready. You ought to thank us, instead of finding fault because we woke you up. You might have slept right through the meal; then you wouldn"t have had anything to eat," explained Walter.
Stacy shook his head.
"No danger. I wasn"t afraid of that!"
"Not afraid of that? Why not?" demanded Ned.
""Cause I knew you"d haul me out. Left my feet sticking out so you would."
Everybody roared. There was no resisting Stacy Brown"s droll humor.
"Hopeless," averred the Professor, shrugging his shoulders.
"He"s a wise one," differed the guide.
"Another name for laziness," nodded Ned.
"What"s that disease they have down south?" asked Walter. "I heard the Professor and the postmaster talking about it back in Eureka."
"You mean the--the hook-worm disease?" grinned the guide.
"That"s it. That"s what Chunky"s got. When a fellow is too lazy to do anything but eat, they say he"s got the--the----"
"The hook----" finished the guide.
"That"s what he ought to get," agreed Ned.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" corrected the Professor. "This is not a seemly topic for table discussion."
"But we eat pigs" feet," suggested Stacy in wide-eyed innocence.
The meal finished, amid laughter and jest, the party stowed their belongings, and after a brief rest, pushed on, having decided that they would feel the heat less in the saddle.
At sundown the travelers were still some distance from the water hole for which the guide was making.
"We"ll have to go on," he said. "We may have to ride some time after dark."
"Will that be advisable?" questioned the Professor.
"Not advisable, but necessary. The stock must have their water you know."
So the party pushed on. The moon came up late in the evening, and the guide looking about him, discovered that they had borne too far to the east, which necessitated their covering some four miles more of alkali than would have been the case had they kept more closely to their course.
"It can"t be helped," he laughed good-naturedly. "I guess the pigs"
feet will last you until we make camp."
"How long will that be, Mr. Parry?" questioned Chunky anxiously.
"All of an hour and a half."
Stacy humorously took up his belt three holes.
"Got two more holes left to take in," he decided after examining the belt critically.
"That"s a new way to measure distance and time, isn"t it!" laughed the guide.
"How?" wondered Stacy.
"By the holes in your belt."
At eleven o"clock that night Tom Parry announced that they had arrived at the end of their day"s journey.
"Where"s the water? I don"t see any water?" said Walter.
"After supper we"ll look for it. I presume want something to eat first, don"t you?" questioned the guide.
"Yes," shouted the lads in chorus. "We"re nearly starved."
Bacon and coffee const.i.tuted the bill of fare for their late meal, which they ate out in the bright moonlight with the crackling camp-fire near by.
"This is fine," announced Tad, with which sentiment all the boys agreed. "Wish we could do this every night."
"Your supper would be breakfast after a few days," replied Parry.
"How"s that!" questioned Ned.
"If you waited for moonlight, I mean. The moon comes up later every night, you know."
"That"s so."
"We"d get hungry, wouldn"t we?" chuckled Stacy.
"You wouldn"t get. You always are," retorted Ned.
"Now, I"ll show you how I know there is a water hole near here," said Parry after they had finished their late meal. "When I locate it, you boys may help me take the stock to it."
They walked back some twenty rods from where they had pitched the camp, Parry meanwhile hunting about as if in search of something that he had dropped.
"Nope. No water here," decided Stacy.
"You don"t know. Ah! Here is what I am looking for."
The guide pointed to a heap of stones that rose some twelve inches above the ground. On the west side of the heap several stones had been placed in a row, thus forming an arm that extended or pointed almost due west.
"Know what that is?" asked Parry.