Part 31 (1/2)

”Of course,” said Betty.

He saw that she was leaning back against the rocks, that her whole body drooped, that she looked wearied out.

”I'm going out for some boughs, the softest I can find handy,” he said.

”We'll have to sleep on them. And while I'm doing that I've got to figure out a way to bring some water up here. We don't know what's ahead and we'd be in hard luck bottled up here all day tomorrow with nothing to drink. Lord, I'd give a lot for a tin bucket!”

He made a little heap of dead wood close to her hand so that she could keep her fire going, and put down on the other side of her his rifle and the long obsidian knife, planning to use his pocket knife for the work at hand.

”You won't go far?” asked Betty.

”Only a few steps,” he a.s.sured her. ”I'll hear if you call. And you have the rifle handy.”

He was going out when Betty's voice arrested him.

”It's the housekeeper's place to have the buckets ready,” was what she said.

”What do you mean by that?” he asked.

”I'll show you when you come back. You'll hurry, won't you?”

”Sure thing,” he answered. And went about his task.

Now Jim Kendric knew as well as any man that there is no bed to compare with the bed a man may make for himself in the forestlands. But here was no forest, no thicket of young firs aromatic and springy, nothing but the harsher vegetation of a hard land where agaves, the _maguey_ of Mexico, and their kin thrive, where the cactus is the characteristic growth. He'd be in luck to find some small pines or even the dry-looking spa.r.s.e cedars of the locality. These with handfuls of dry leaves and gra.s.s, perhaps some tenderer shoots from the hillside sage, with Zoraida's cloak spread over them, might make for Betty a couch on which she could manage to sleep. It was too dark for picking and choosing and his range was limited to what scant growth found root on these uplands close by.

When he returned with the first armful of branches he informed Betty cheerily that outside her fire was hidden as though a st.u.r.dy oak panel shut their door for them. Betty was bending busily over her cloak and still thus occupied when he brought in the second and third trailing armful of boughs. He stood with his hands on his hips, looking down at her curiously. And as at last Betty glanced up brightly there was an air of triumph about her.

”The bucket is ready for the water,” she said.

He came closer and she held out something toward him, and again he adjusted his views to fit the companion whom he was growing to know.

She had spoiled a very beautiful and expensive cloak, but of it she had improvised something intended to hold water. Not for very long, perhaps; but long enough for the journey here from the creek, if a man did not loiter on the way. With the ancient sacrificial knife she had hacked at a stringy, fibrous bit of vegetation growing near the mouth of their den; she had managed a tough loop some eight or ten inches in diameter. Then she had ripped a square of silk from the cloak which she had shaped cunningly like a deep pocket, binding it securely into the fiber rim by thrusting holes through the silk and running bits of the green fiber through like pack thread. The final result looked something less like a bucket than some strange oriole's hanging nest.

”It _will_ hold water,” vowed Betty, ready for argument. ”I've worn bathing caps of a lot poorer grade of silk and never a drop got through. Besides I put a thickness of silk, then a layer of these broad leaves, then another piece of silk, to make sure.”

”Fine,” he said. ”Yes, it will hold water for a while. But it's a long time from daylight until dark, and I'm afraid----”

”As if I hadn't thought of that!” said Betty. ”I knew that if I looked around I'd find something. I thought of your boots, of course; and I thought of your rifle barrel. But you'll need the boots and may need the gun. Come and I'll show you our reservoir.”

She put a handful of leaves and twigs on the fire for the sake of more light, and led the way toward the narrowing fissure further back in their retreat. Here she stopped before a great rudely egg-shaped boulder five or six feet through that lay in a shallow depression in the ground.

”Our water bottle,” said Betty.

He supposed that she referred to the depression in the rock floor, since the boulder did not fit in it so exactly as to preclude the possibility of the big rude basin holding water. The word ”evaporation” was on his lips when Betty explained. She had hoped to find somewhere a cavity in a rock that would hold their water supply; she had noted this boulder and a flattish place at its top. There her questing fingers had discovered what Kendric's, at her direction, were exploring now. There was a fairly round hole, a couple of inches across. The edges were surprisingly smooth; Kendric could not guess how deep the hole was.

”Poke a stick into it,” Betty commanded.

Obeying, he learned that the hole extended eighteen inches or more.

Here was a fairly regular cylinder let into a block of hard rock that would contain something like two quarts of water--certainly enough to keep the life in two people for twenty-four hours.

”We'll make a plug to fit into the mouth of it,” he said, catching her idea and immediately was as enthusiastic over it as Betty. ”And while we're out getting the water we'll find something for straws. There are wild gra.s.ses, oats or something that looks like oats, in the canon.”