Towards evening, after making two short marches during the day, we camped south of the snow range we had been steering for, but there were no signs to tell us that the three abandoned ones were following. More food and grain was left here, and we moved off soon after 4 A.M. It is, as some will know, chilly work sallying forth before sunrise when the minimum registers over twenty degrees of frost; and as one tramps along, marching only two miles an hour with the animals, one eagerly watches for the first tip of the sun to appear, meanwhile warming the hands alternately inside the coat, for we always made a point of carrying a rifle each.
It was my turn to go on ahead to-day, and after a brisk walk of five miles I came upon a most inviting spot. There were two tiny fresh-water lakes, surrounded by grassy hills, with the snow peaks on the northern side feeding the hills below with a daily supply of water. Fearing disappointment in that the water might be salt, I hastened on to the two pools, and, as I expected, they were fresh, so I hurried back to climb some rising ground, from whence the caravan would be in sight and earshot. There the firing off of my gun announced to them, according to previous arrangement, that water and grass had been found.
[Illustration: WE CAMP BY TWO FRESH-WATER POOLS.]
Whilst enjoying our midday halt a couple of antelopes and sand-grouse came to drink, and fell victims to our guns for their greediness. We all revelled in the abundance of such good things, and would have much liked to lengthen our stay; but on inspecting our supplies we found the men had only fifteen days' rations left. We tried hard to persuade them to subsist on half rations, as we ourselves had been doing, and although at the time they finally expressed their willingness to do so, and saw the expediency of the plan, still they made their promise when filled with immense meals of hallaled antelope and heavy chupatties, and we doubted their power of abstaining. If they could have managed to show more self-control over their food, we reckoned in thirty more days on half rations we should cover another three hundred miles, and we considered the fact of travelling that distance further on, without meeting anybody, was an absolute impossibility; besides, the general appearance of the country was improving, and on that very evening we actually encamped on the grassy banks of a small running stream. It was an enticement to us to follow up this rivulet, but the extreme southern course it took outweighed our wishes. The men already began to grumble that they could not work on half rations, this too when they had vast supplies of meat from the antelope. The only advice we could give them, was to eat up their food as fast as they could, and then, when it was all gone, they would have to exist on still less than they were now doing, if they wanted to live at all. Whatever argument we brought forward had no weight with such men, who would only think of appeasing their wants for the time being. Although we spoke to them harshly, still it was our fixed intention to strive our utmost to shoot game for the men, so that they might save a little of their rations, and sometimes at our midday halt we would sally forth with rifles to try and bag something before the afternoon's march. Even then it was only in a grumbling frame of mind that a man would accompany us to hallal the animal.