In a little while Raquel peeled an orange, making the girl eat it with a few wheat cakes. She herself then ate as much of the slender provender as she dared, and with good appetite, for she had breakfasted before five that morning. A little color was returning to Lois’ lips. She lay back resting. Presently she looked at Raquel with puzzled eyes. “You--you act as though nothing had ever happened, I should think you’d hate me. I wouldn’t have blamed you for leaving me there--in that terrible place.” At the thought tears filled her eyes again. Lois was quite unnerved. What she must have been through, poor child! “There, you mustn’t think of it,” Raquel said soothingly. “Why, I wouldn’t leave a horse to suffer, would I? Much less a person.” Lois was silent, taking this in. “And perhaps----” It had been on the tip of Raquel’s tongue to say, “I’d better have left you there. This may be a hard trip.” But she caught herself just in time, and said instead, “Probably you will feel better to get into new surroundings.” Raquel had left her wrist watch at El Escondido on the night of their hasty flight, but Lois wore a delicate little toy on her own wrist, and it now started bravely ticking when Raquel wound it and set it at two o’clock, which she judged by the sun was the correct time. Raquel hung wet cloths on the bushes above Lois’ head to create a bit of moisture in that fearful dryness, while the horses flicked their tails contentedly near, backed into the coolness of the mesquite leaves. Presently the girls slept. The shadows grew longer and the little watch said six-thirty when they gradually roused. Lois’ face was flushed and she seemed scarcely able to shake off the stupor and heat languor which possessed her. Raquel bathed her face in the stream, which was running clearer now, and freeing the horses she led them down to water. The bank seemed firm, without any quicksands near. Paintbrush was vastly at home and, as the air cooled, was playful as a colt. He rolled his pretty, silky back over and over in the water. “You wouldn’t think of running off from me and playing me a trick, old boy, would you?” Raquel said to him. “I’ll not take any chances with the call of the wild,” she thought, and staked Paintbrush with the length of her reata near by. The big horse stood gratefully in the water, but seemed unused to open country. “I knew you were stable-bred, old feller, you,” Raquel told him. “Now don’t get caught in the quicksands.” “Are you just talking to the _horses_, Raquel?” Lois asked, weakly. “Of course,” laughed Raquel. “Come down here, Lois, can’t you, and we can take a bath here in the river that will refresh us for the ride this evening.” “Oh, Raquel,” Lois gasped, in dismay, “I couldn’t ride another step today. Oh, I can’t.” “You’ll feel better when you have had a bath and some food,” Raquel answered reassuringly.