The riders, naturally, drank first. Buffalo Bill, Dell, and Cayuse all knelt at the brim and assuaged their thirst at the same time. “Queer taste to the water, don’t you think?” remarked Dell. The scout had noticed the acrid taste, but supposed that it was perhaps due to a touch of alkali. “Do you remember, Cayuse,” Buffalo Bill asked, as he straightened up at the brink of the pool, “whether this particular spring always has this peculiar taste?” Cayuse shook his head. “Him Arizona spring all kind tastes, all kinds smell,” observed the boy philosophically. “Better so you drink and be glad what you drink is _wet_. Huh?” “I reckon that about hits it,” laughed the scout, leading up his horse. Bear Paw, the scout’s black charger, nosed about in the pool for some time, slapping the water with his muscular upper lip. Thirsty as he was, for several moments the horse refused to drink, but at last, apparently deciding to make the best of it, took a few sparing swallows. Silver Heels and Navi acted very much in the same way, but cut short their objections and went to their refreshment much more quickly than had Bear Paw. “The animals don’t like it, either,” commented Dell. “I don’t blame them,” said Buffalo Bill, “but water is water in this region, and, as Cayuse says, if it’s wet, neither man nor beast should demand more.” The horses, freed of their saddles, were roped out in the scant grass which grew along the overflow from the pool. While they grazed, the scout and his companions took their first meal off their rations. Dell, with a piece of jerked meat in one hand and a cracker in the other, leaned back against a rock and became exceedingly loquacious. “Lawn-tennis!” she exclaimed. “It’s all the go at the post, Nomad--I mean Buffalo Bill. It’s a great game, for those who like it. They play it on snow-shoes--I should say overshoes----” She stopped with a grimacing twist of her pretty face. “What am I trying to say, anyhow?” she demanded. “Pass the ante, Lolita--I mean Dell,” Buffalo Bill returned, and wondered why he could feel no surprise at the way both he and the girl were handling their English. “I thought you were Buffalo Bill, for a minute,” cried Dell, almost choking with laughter. “So did I,” roared the scout. Then added, quite serious: “I wonder who’s running this _baille_, anyhow?” “That’s one too many for me,” answered Dell. “Who owns the honkatonk? Where’s the music?” Little Cayuse, leaping up suddenly, raised his arms high and held up his head. He began to mutter, and the muttering gave way to a sort of crooning song: “Tu-wip pu-a tu-wip pu-a Av-wim-pai-ar-ru-wip pu-a Tu-ra-gu-ok tu-ra-gu-ok Kaiv-wa mu-tu-rai-ka-nok.”[1] [1] Piute song, meaning: “In that land, in that land, In that glittering land; Far away, far away, The mountain was shaken with pain.”