Prospects now seemed to me so hopeless, that I heartily wished I was not
in duty bound to stand by the women and small children who could never
reach a land of bread without assistance. If I was in the position that
some of them were who had only themselves to look after, I could pick up
my knapsack and gun and go off, feeling I had no dependent ones to leave
behind. But as it was I felt I should be morally guilty of murder if I
should forsake Mr. Bennett's wife and children, and the family of Mr.
Arcane with whom I had been thus far associated. It was a dark line of
thought but I always felt better when I got around to the determination,
as I always did, to stand by my friends, their wives and children let
come what might.
I could see with my glass the train of wagons moving slowly over the
plain toward what looked to me like a large lake. I made a guess of the
point they would reach by night, and then took a straight course for it
all day long in steady travel. It was some time after dark, and I was
still a quarter of a mile from the camp fires, where in the bed of a
canon I stepped into some mud, which was a sign of water. I poked around
in the dark for a while and soon found a little pool of it, and having
been without a drop of it for two days I lay down and took a hasty
drink. It did not seem to be very clear or clean, but it was certainly
wet, which was the main thing just then. The next morning I went to the
pond of water, and found the oxen had been watered there.
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