Though it came from a great
distance it unmistakably was four distinct gunshots.
Too weak and exhausted to talk, yet determined to carry through our
undertaking, we pushed on and on till we could go no farther; then we
dropped where we stood, side by side, and slept.
Morning woke us. Through the trees we saw a cone-shaped peak and a great
marsh where buffalo were feeding. We unwittingly had circled in the night
and had come back to within a quarter of a mile of the very point from
which we had set forth.
CHAPTER XX
A STORY IN MELON SEEDS
We were all gaunt and unkempt after our hardships of the past two days, but
Neddie, poor fellow, looked more like a corpse than a living man and moaned
with thirst and scarcely could sit up without help. Finding about a pint of
water close at hand in the hollow of a tree, we carried him to it and he
sucked it up with a straw till it was all gone; but though it relieved his
misery, he was manifestly unable to walk, even had we dared stir abroad, so
we stayed where we were while the sun rose to the meridian. We could find
so little water that we all suffered from thirst, and with Neddie's
sickness in mind none of us dared eat more leaves or berries.
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