Supper being over, the boys and I were getting into our blankets for the rest of the night, when Mr. Hudson, who had been preparing to depart, came to bid us good-bye.

“I seem to take frequent leave of you, these times, lieutenant,” he said.

“Yes; and your farewell ride with the Whipple mail so far seems to have been anything but monotonous.  I think the Anabasis would be a more suitable subject of study on this route than the Memorabilia.”

“’Hence they proceeded one day’s journey, a distance of five parasangs, and fell in with the barbarians,’ might well be said of this trip, for a fact.”

“Hadn’t you 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.