The water was warm, but the horses drank deeply, and Ned and Obed refilled their bottles.  The stop enabled the pursuing Lipans to come within a mile of them, but, moving away at an increased pace, they began to lengthen the gap.

“The Lipans will stop and water their ponies and themselves just as we have done,” said Obed.  “Everything that we have to endure they have to endure, too.  It’s a poor rule that doesn’t work for one side as well as the other.”

“It would all look like play,” said Ned, “if we didn’t know that it was so much in earnest.  Just as you said, Obed, they’re stopping to drink at the pond.”

A shadow seemed to pass between himself and the blazing glare of the sun.  He looked up.  It was a shadow thrown by a great bird, with black wings, flying low.  Others of the same kind circled higher.  Ned saw with a shiver that they were vultures.  Obed saw them, too, and he also saw Ned’s face pale a little.

“You take it as an omen,” he said, “and maybe it is, but it’s a poor omen that won’t work both ways.  They’re flying back now towards the Indians, so I guess the Lipans had better look out.”

Nevertheless, both were depressed by the appearance of the vultures and the heat that afternoon grew more intense than ever.  The horses, at last, began to show signs of weariness, but Ned reflected that for every mile they traveled the Lipans must travel one also, and he recalled the words of Obed that chance might come to their aid.

Another night followed, clear and bright, with the great stars dancing in the southern skies, and Ned and Obed rode long after nightfall.  Again the Lipans sank from sight, and, as before, the two stopped on one of the swells.

“Now, Obed,” said Ned, “it is your time to sleep and mine to watch.  I submitted last night and you must submit to-night.  You know that you can’t go on forever without sleep.”

“Your argument is good,” said Obed, “and I yield.  It isn’t worth while for me to tell you to watch well, because I know you’ll do it.”

He stretched himself out, folded between his blankets, and was soon asleep.  The horses tethered to a lonesome yucca found a few blades of grass on the swell, which they cropped luxuriously.  Then they lay down.  Ned walked about for a long time rifle on shoulder.  It turned colder and he wrapped his serape around his shoulders and chest.  Finally he grew tired of walking, and sat down on the ground, holding his rifle across his lap.  He sat on the highest point of the swell, and, despite the night, he could see a considerable distance.

His sight and hearing alike were acute, but neither brought him any alarm.  He tried to reconstruct in his mind the Lipan mode of procedure.  With the coming of the night and the disappearance of the fugitives from their sight they would spread out in a long line, in order that they might not pass the two without knowing it, and advance until midnight, perhaps.  Then they, too, would rest, and pick up the trail again in the morning.