I Thought That It Was Much
More Likely For Him To Kill Me Than I Him, And I Set His Mind At Rest
About The Reward, For On The Spot I Gave Him The Coveted Articles.
On
receipt of those luxuries his doubts of me fled, and I soon assured
him that I had no intention whatever of taking his life.
Towards noon
we started off, and, winding our way through the Indian paths in
single file, we again soon left behind us all signs of man, and saw
nothing to mark that any had passed that way before.
That night, as we sat under a large silk-cotton tree silently eating
supper off plates of palm leaves, the old chief suddenly threw down
his meat, and, with a startled expression, said, "I hear spirits!"
Never having heard such ethereal visitors myself, I smiled
incredulously, whereupon the old savage glared at me, and, leaving
his food upon the ground went away out of the firelight into the
darkness. Afraid that he might take one of the horses and return to
his people, I followed to soothe him, but his offended mood did not
pass until, as he said, the spirits had gone.
On the third day scarcity of water began to be felt. We had been
slowly ascending the rugged steeps of a mountain, and as the day wore
on the thirst grew painful. That night both we and the horses had to
be content with the dew-drops we sucked from the grass, and our dumb
companions showed signs of great exhaustion.
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