Late that afternoon we fancied that our fast failing brute
companions scented water, or that they instinctively knew that it was
not far away. They would raise their heads, and extend their noses as if
smelling, while their physical force and energy seemed renewed, and they
certainly traveled faster.
That night we ate the little, as before stated, more as a duty than as a
pleasure. There was some green grass round about where we camped, or,
more properly speaking, where we lay, for we did not erect our little
tent,--but the poor starving animals did not eat a bite of it, but stood
over us as if in sympathy with us in our deplorable condition. We rose
before the sun, being somewhat rested and refreshed, for the night had
been cool, and took up our line of march, I, as usual, in the lead, then
came the old mule guided by its precious owner, and lastly, the faithful
little horse with the pack on his still quite round back;--on over the
still dry and barren plain we went, without a Moses, cloud, or pillar of
fire to lead us.
About ten o'clock, through the hot glimmer of the down-pouring rays of
the sun, we saw what appeared, and afterwards proved, to be a clump of
cottonwood trees. Our hopes and courage were renewed, for we well knew
the cottonwood usually grows near flowing water. There was no beaten
pathway, no signs of animal life, no quails, no manna in that desert;
but on we went, almost without a halt, and at one o'clock reached the
cottonwood grove, immediately on the bank of the great river down which
we had floated in our canoes more than a month before.
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