Over a blackened peak a large star soared up like a bright eye spying
on the waste. Suddenly the hand clinched and he struck down at the
earth with it.
"I can't go without water till the morning."
"Try to sleep," she said. "We must stand it the best way we can."
"I can't sleep."
He moaned and turned over on his face and lying thus rolled from side
to side as if in anguish that movement assuaged. For the first time
she looked at him, turning upon him a glance of questioning anxiety.
She could see his narrow, angular shape, the legs twisted, the arms
bent for a pillow, upon which his head moved in restless pain.
"David, we've got to wait."
"The night through? Stay this way till morning? I'll be dead. I wish
I was now."
She looked away from him seized by temptation that rose from contrition
not pity.
"If you cared for me you could get it. Low's certain to find a spring."
"Very well. I will," she said and rose to her feet.
She moved softly to the camp the darkness hiding her. Daddy John was
taking a cat nap by the fire, a barrier of garnered sage behind him.
She knew his sleep was light and stole with a tiptoe tread to the back
of the wagon where the water cask stood.
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