Parry glanced off over the desert meditatively.
"If we have no bad luck we ought to make it in three days. The cowboys will get there some time to-morrow."
"One of them won't," answered Tad, confidently.
"His pony is wind-broken. Didn't you hear him breathe when they rode in?"
"What, with the bunch howling like a pack of coyotes? No, I didn't hear a horse breathe."
"Did what?" queried Ned, turning on him sharply. Rector had not heard the fat boy approach them.
"Heard the big cowboy breathe. He wheezed like a leaky steam engine."
"Why, boy, we weren't talking about the cowboy. We were speaking of one of the bronchos. Tad says he is wind-broken."
"Huh!" grunted Stacy, strolling off with hands thrust in his pockets, chin on his breast. "When I'm not right I'm always wrong," he muttered. "Mostly wrong."
They did not see the lad again for more than an hour. The rest of the party gathered under the tent they had first erected, where they now fell to discussing their late visitors, next turning to their plans for the morrow.
"Do we follow the same course when we next start?" asked the Professor.
"Not quite. We veer a little more to the west, until we string the San Antonio Range. When we leave there, if you conclude to go on, we shall head southward toward Death Valley. I understand you are willing to penetrate it a little way."
"Death Valley is no better than its name. If you wish merely to see it, I think I can gratify your desire."
"Yes, yes, we want to see Death Valley," chorused the boys. "Don't be afraid for us."
"I'll try to get some water bags from the horse-hunters when we join them; for the further south one goes on the desert the more scarce the water becomes."
The sun was lying low by this time and the advance guard of the evening coolness began crowding back the heat of the day.
"I wonder what has become of Chunky?" questioned Tad suddenly, rising from the ground where he had thrown himself in the shade of the tent.
"Probably find him asleep behind a bunch of sage somewhere," answered Ned lightly. "Don't trouble yourself about him."
"Perhaps over by the water hole," suggested the guide. "I'll stroll over that way."
Just then a figure topped the ridge beyond them.
It was yelling lustily, leaping into the air, rolling and groveling on the ground alternately.