"We may find them at supper," I said, giving Frank an impatient slap with the lines. The blow was a light one, but it took him by surprise, and, as was his wont, he stopped and looked back inquiringly, seemingly anxious to know what was meant by such a proceeding. Jessie snatched up the whip, and I laughed as I invited Frank to go on. "Don't strike him, please, Jessie! You don't understand Frank, and he doesn't understand the meaning of a blow; he thinks, when he is doing his work faithfully and gets struck, that it must have been an accident, and he stops to investigate." "Dear me! How much you know--or think you do--about horses," Jessie returned wearily. "You're worse than old Joe." She dropped the whip back into its socket with a petulant gesture. "I'm sorry we started, Leslie. Here we've been on the road six or eight hours--" "A little over three hours, Jessie." "Well, we're not in sight of the promised land yet, and I'm nearly roasted; I shall just melt if we keep on this way much longer." "Me is melted; me is all water!" cried Ralph, waking up suddenly, and immediately giving way to forlorn tears. The tears plowed tiny furrows through the dust that clung to his moist cheeks, and had settled in grayish circles underneath his eyes. Jessie looked down at the piteous little figure and her own ill-temper vanished. "Come up here and look round, you poor hot little mite!" she exclaimed, extending one hand and a foot as a sort of impromptu step-ladder. Ralph clambered up with some difficulty and looked around as directed, but the prospect did not have an enlivening effect on him. "Where is we?" he demanded, turning his large, dust-encircled eyes on each of us in turn. "On the plains," I responded briefly. I was driving; the load was heavy, and the horses, worn with fatigue and the heat, lagged more and more; therefore my anxiety grew, and I had no time to waste on trivialities. "One need not ask why it never rains here, though," I suddenly observed, "for behold! Jessie, there is the thing that makes rain unnecessary." A glimmer of white had been, for some minutes, slowly growing on the horizon. I had thought at first, that it must be a mirage, but it kept its place so steadily, without that swift, undulating, gliding motion that these familiar plains spectacles always present that I presently became convinced that the white glimmer was a lake, and so that we were within a few miles of our objective point. "Sure enough, that's the lake!" Jessie exclaimed, after a long look. "Well, that's some comfort," was her conclusion. Ralph stood up on the seat between us and looked, too: "Me wants a dwink!" he cried, after making quite sure that the white shimmer in the distance was that of water. Jessie slid off the seat and got hold of the water-jug and tin-cup, then she tried to fill the cup, but the result was disastrous. "You'll have to stop the horses, Leslie, I shall spill every drop of water at this rate."