As the long evening shadows crawled over the yucca- and cactus-studded wastes the party entered the buttes. Here they found relief from the monotonous desolation they had left, for huge rocks squatted on either side of their course, and the yuccas were larger and seemed more friendly. The buttes themselves showed a variety to which the level land could not lay claim, and here and there was a juniper tree, alone and unwatered, but displaying a greenery that made it in a way companionable. Darkness had overtaken them when Smith Morley called a halt. They were far within the chain of buttes, in an enfilade with walls of stone towering high above them on either side. They had reached the spring, and, after an examination of it, the prospector made the welcome announcement that there was considerable water in the natural stone basin beneath the drip. For some time, however, the water supply would be short, and it would possibly prove necessary to take the saddle horses into the mountains, the foothills of which were about five miles distant, and leave them there in a certain well-watered meadow of which the opal miners knew. The burros, camel-like, could live on very little water; and the spring perhaps would drip enough for them and the domestic use of the party. The claims were two miles farther on, in the direction of the mountains. They pitched camp at once. Leach and Mrs. Morley went on a search for petrified yucca with which to build a fire. The others unpacked the burros, hobbled the horses, and pitched the tents. Mary Temple, because of her superior culinary knowledge--which no one disputed--constituted herself camp cook; and the first thing she had not condemned since leaving El Trono de Tolerancia was the excellent fire that the petrified yucca made. Her appetizing supper was ready before the last tent had been pitched, and they all gathered around it under the cold desert stars and ate as enjoyably as their cracked and swollen lips would permit. All were excessively weary, and, though the meal revived their spirits in a measure, no one would have been averse to seeking his roll of blankets at an early hour. This, however, was forestalled by the sound of a voice that came suddenly from the night about them--a strange, cracked voice that startled them. “Hello!” it said. “I hope and trust ye ain’t used up all the water in the spring, ’cause I ain’t had a drop since noon, an’ Lot’s Wife ain’t had none since yistiddy mornin’.” Omar Leach, who was reclining on one elbow placidly smoking a short briar pipe, flipped himself to a sitting posture and stared at Morley. Morley’s face twitched, and his close-set eyes seemed to narrow perceptibly as he gazed back at his partner. Then Leach gave himself another flip and was on his feet. “Get outa here!” he bawled. “Go on home, and you’ll find plenty of water. We’re tired and want to go to bed and can’t be bothered with you.”