"You oughta kept your horses as thirsty as the cattle was,
and I bet they'd a' found that water," he criticized, and
was sent to bed for his tactlessness. Bob Birnie himself had
thought of that afterwards, and had excused the oversight by
saying that he had depended on the map, and had not foreseen
a three-day dry drive.
However that may be, that night was a night of panicky
desperation. Ezra walked beside the oxen and shouted and
swung his lash, and the oxen strained forward bellowing so
that not even Dulcie could sleep, but whimpered fretfully in
her mother's arms. Buddy sat up wide-eyed and watched for the
big river, and tried not to be a 'fraid-cat and cry like
Dulcie.
It was long past starry midnight when a little wind puffed
out of the darkness and the oxen threw up their heads and
sniffed, and put a new note into their "M-baw-aw-aw-mm!"
They swung sharply so that the wind blew straight into the
front of the wagon, which lurched forward with a new impetus.
"Glo-ory t' Gawd, Missy! dey smells watah, sho 's yo' bawn!"
sobbed Ezra as he broke into a trot beside the wheelers "
'Tain't fur--lookit dat-ah huhd a-goin' it! No 'm, Missy, DEY
ain't woah out--dey smellin' watah an' dey'm gittin' TO it!
'Tain't fur, Missy."
Buddy clung to the back of the seat and stared round-eyed
into the gloom.
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