Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/142

 twelve hours is the white man's limit. The guide assured us that if we would continue on an hour longer we would find water. After four hours of hard, hot marching we arrived at a hole in the ground where some time there had been water but not a drop remained. After a little digging at the bottom of the hole the natives declared there was no hope. Our trail for the last hour had been under a pitiless noon-*day sun along a narrow valley shut in on either side by steep, rocky hills, while we faced a veritable sand storm, a strong, hot wind that drove the burning sand into our faces and hands. The dry well was the last straw.

The guides said there was one more hole about an hour away and they would go and see if there was water there. They with the gun-bearers started out, while we off-saddled the mules and using the saddles for pillows and the saddle blankets to protect our faces from the driving sand, dozed in the scant shade of a leafless thorn tree.

At four o'clock the boys returned—no water. Dodson and I received the report, looked at one another, and returned to our pillows beneath the saddle blankets. A little later a continued prodding in the ribs from my gun-bearer brought me to attention again as he pointed out an approaching caravan consisting of several camels and a couple of natives. Each of the natives carried a well-filled goatskin from his shoulders, and realizing that these goatskins probably contained milk, I knew that our troubles were nearly over. I instructed the gun-bearer to make a bargain