New life was given the caravan. The mules strained at the wagons; the men plodded beside them; they pushed ahead with their last strength and came, after interminable striving, through a living furnace that consumed with flameless heat, upon a great circular depression in the alkaline plain--a buffalo wallow, at the bottom of which was water. Water, thank God, muddy but not stagnant, thick and slimy as it was, precious to that caravan. Canteens were filled first, hastily, tremblingly, and then the oxen were released from their yokes and led down to the muddy hole where the _arrieros_ were restraining their mules from falling into the pool or from lying down in the wet, hot mud. Two of the animals tottered at the brink, died, and fell down the slope, whence they had to be hauled back and away. It was not a lovely sight, nor were the men who drank. Steven strained the contents of his canteen through a fine nainsook handkerchief which he extracted with difficulty from his things, and after filling his own mouth to wash down the muddy fluid which he had first drunk, and blessed, he hastened to the wagon where the girl lay. White as death, her lips cracked, she was half conscious, but took the water pitifully, eagerly. The boy had refused, shaking his head, “Sister first,” he whispered. “She gave all the rest last night to papa and me.” Steve looked about for the man, but he had been one of the first at the water-hole, lying on his stomach till he could drink no more. He was tending the mules now, which he did faithfully. Not until after dark did they move, when a cooler air had come creeping over the alkali to take the place of the hot air that rose from the desert. The water-hole, once a large salt lick in which the rains had gathered, had saved their lives. Toward dawn they stumbled upon the banks of the Arkansas, where the animals waded into the clear stream, and the men, clothes and all. Steven half carried, half led, Doren and his sister down to the water. At sundown the next evening it was a different lot of beings who sat about their camp fires under the great cottonwoods that lined the river bank. Young grouse were roasting on a turning spit, and fish from the river. A short way up a little tributary stream Pierre had caught a beaver which he skinned at once. Having roasted the body whole for the men, he now prepared that great delicacy, the tail, for the young lady. He thrust the stick into it and, holding it over the fire until the large scales puffed up, he peeled it and in a moment offered it on a tin plate. Coffee bubbled, and unleavened bread was flapped on the hot stones.