The return of the boys to anything like a normal condition was very slow, though Sidney had the courage and good sense to parcel out the water, both to himself and to Raymond. He allowed his brother to take only a swallow or two at intervals, and he restrained himself in the same way. At first it required a self-control that was almost beyond his strength, but as they absorbed the restoring fluid their ravening, consuming appetite decreased, and it became a joy, instead of a tantalizing torture, to sip the water slowly. Presently, too, as their mouths and throats became softened they were able to talk, if not with ease, at least with little difficulty.

“That was as near as I want to come to passing in my checks, Sid,” said Raymond as they lay on the sand below the caÑon wall.

“Yes, it was quite close enough.”

“I would have done it, too, if I had been alone. You must have just dragged me down the mountain.”

“You didn’t seem very anxious to come, and that’s a fact.”

“You know, Sid, I don’t remember a thing after we lay down last night, but I had the most delightful dreams.”

“You didn’t act as though they were delightful.”

“Why, what did I do?”

“You kept jumping up and calling out.”

“And keeping you awake, I suppose.”

“Yes, a little.”

“Poor old Sid; you have a hard time getting me through.”

“But when it comes to gun play, then you take care of us both.”

“Well, that’s one thing I can do,—handle a gun.”

“I hope you’ll not have any more of it to do, though.”

“Do you think, Sid, that we are safe here? I haven’t looked, but I should think the trail that we missed last night must pass through this gorge.”

“Yes, it does. I saw the tracks out there in the sand.”

“I suppose it must be traveled occasionally.” And Raymond stood up and looked along the caÑon wall. “That looks like a little ravine coming in up there. Let’s see if there isn’t some place that we can crawl into for shelter.”

“Yes, I guess we’d better.” And Sidney stood up and stretched stiffly. “We are certainly too exposed here. But do you know, Ray, I’m so lame and sore that I can hardly move.”

“I’m not very lame,—just tired, that’s all; but then you worked harder than I did.”

The boys moved slowly along the sand to the cleft in the caÑon wall which Raymond had indicated. They found a very narrow chasm that had been cut through the rock by the occasional torrential rains of centuries. Its bottom, for some yards back, was on a level with the sandy floor of the caÑon and was not more than ten feet wide. Overhead the cleft was very irregular, in places the two walls nearly coming together. Extending back on the right side beneath the overhanging rock was a sheltered space, very like a small cave.

“Gee! Sid,” exclaimed Raymond, “that’s a fine place, and nobody can see us from the caÑon. But, jiminy! where are our blankets? Did we leave them up on the mountain?”

“I guess we did. I hadn’t thought of them at all. But I don’t believe I can crawl up there after them to-night; I feel too gone for anything.”

“No wonder you feel gone,” said Raymond; “we haven’t eaten a thing to-day. We’ve been so busy drinking since we got down to the caÑon that I had forgotten all about grub.”

“I can’t remember exactly,” said Sidney, “but I don’t think there is much grub.”

“Well, there’s some, anyway. You get out what there is, Sid, and I’ll take the cup and bring up some water. I feel as though I should want to keep right on drinking forever.”

It had been very late in the morning when the boys roused from their night of stupor on the side of the mountain, and then it had taken a long time for Sidney to get himself and his brother down to the bottom of the caÑon. After they had reached water they were also a long time in getting back any semblance of strength, so when they retreated to the little cave under the caÑon wall, it was nearly night and the sun had already dropped back of the mountains.

Sidney, when he examined the knapsacks, found there was a moderate supply of bread and cheese. The latter, with water to remove the effect of its salty condition, was extremely palatable, and the boys made what they declared was a sumptuous supper.

“Do you realize, Sid,” said Raymond, as they lay on the sand munching bread and cheese, and frequently sipping water, of which they seemed never to be able to get enough, “that we have eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, and then only a little bread in that deserted house, because we had no water to wash it down? And we’ve done some strenuous work since, too.”

“We haven’t eaten much, but you know we did eat a little bread up on the mountain last night.”

“I don’t remember eating any bread,” declared Raymond.

“Have you forgotten how I urged you to eat something, and you finally took a dry crust?”

“Yes; I don’t remember a thing about it. But I do remember the dreams I had. I was in swimming most of the time, and it was always down in Mexico, in the Conchos River. Gee, but it was fine!”

“If it was so fine I don’t see why you made such a rumpus.”

“I suppose I was swimming hard, and splashing around.”

“I didn’t observe much splashing. It was a mighty dry swim.” And Sidney laughed rather ruefully.

“Do you know what the date is, Sid?”

“No, I haven’t the least idea, and I don’t believe I could figure it out, after all we have done.”

“Do you suppose it’s September yet?”

“September,” repeated Sidney thoughtfully; “maybe it is. I should think it might be December.”

The boys had by that time finished their supper, and Sidney carefully packed away the bread and cheese that was left. Then they stretched out on the sand, beginning to feel quite like themselves again.

“I wish I knew where father is,” said Sidney.

“He may be back in New York by this time.”

“Oh, I don’t think he can be,” exclaimed Sidney. Then, after a moment of reflection, “Still, he may be, too. I hope he is.”

“Are you sorry we started out the way we did?” asked Raymond.

“Well, I don’t know,” replied Sidney. “If we had known the Russian Government was going to be so good to Americans, we might have waited in Nizhni-Novgorod. But we did what we thought was the best thing.”

“Gee! but that was a long time ago,” said Raymond. “If we had only been able to send a message to mother! She must have had a tough time waiting in New York after she knew about the war.”

“Yes; I feel worse about that than anything else.” And there was a suspicion of moisture in Sidney’s eyes. “Poor mother! I suppose we ought not to have insisted on coming when she was so opposed to it.”

“But who could have imagined there would be such a war? Even mother thought we should be safe from war over here. And father wanted to come, too.”

“Well, father is about as much of a boy as we are.”

“This is the toughest proposition we were ever up against, Sid.”

“It certainly is, and after we are over the mountains we don’t know what we’ll strike on the other side.”

“Maybe America will join in the war by that time, and we’ll be arrested as spies.”

“That couldn’t be,” said Sidney. “If America goes in she’ll be on the side of England and France and Russia. So I think we’ll be safe till we reach the Black Sea; then there’s no knowing what Turkey may do to us.”

“It would sure be a comfort to know what’s going on.”

As Raymond spoke, the boys heard voices, and peering around the corner of rock they saw two horsemen cantering down the caÑon.

“I’m glad we had sense to hide,” said Raymond, as they watched the men. “I should think those fellows would swelter in their long coats and those awful woolly caps.”

“I’m wondering,” said Sidney, “how much travel there is on that other trail. I feel so much better now that I’ve a good mind to go up after our blankets.”

“It would be dark before you could get there. We’d better wait till morning. That’s probably only a wood trail and there won’t be much travel over it.”

“If it’s a wood trail,” suggested Sidney, “somebody may start out after wood early in the morning, or somebody may have come down to-night, already.”

“Well, if they’ve come down already,” said Raymond, “we can’t do any good by going up now.”

“It’s not going to be very comfortable here to-night without any blankets.” And Sidney looked about them suggestively.

“Oh, it won’t be so bad,” said Raymond; “we can stretch out on the sand, and it’s not cold.”

The relief brought by food and drink after their privation, and the delightful peace of calm security after their strenuous exertions, induced a languid drowsiness that became sleep almost as soon as the boys had lain down.

A cold night wind came down off the high mountains and whistled and wailed through the little ravine, but the boys in their cave were out of its course, and its moaning, instead of disturbing them, made them sleep sounder. As they had gone to sleep, however, with the closing-in of night, the long hours before morning brought thorough rest, and they were awake by break of day.

Raymond proposed that they should go up after their blankets before eating breakfast, and so perhaps get ahead of any early wood-chopper. The slope did not look so long as it had seemed the night before, and they were soon halfway up it. At that height they could see the village from which they had escaped, looking, from that distance, like a collection of big rocks. And they saw, too, coming on the trail which they had taken in the dark, a man who was driving a donkey ahead of him.

“There’s our wood-chopper, Ray,” said Sidney, “and he’s going to reach the blankets ahead of us.”

“Oh, well, he can’t get away with them, and we can take care of one man all right.”

Hurry as the boys might, the man with the donkey arrived first. He was, apparently, ignorant that there was any one near him, but the boys were sure that he must have seen them on the bare slope. When he came to the blankets he stopped and examined them for a moment, then quickly gathering them up, he threw them across the donkey and started on.

“Hold on, there!” shouted Raymond.

The man, however, instead of stopping, tried to whip his donkey to a swifter gait. But the little animal was so used to traveling at a walk that it could not be persuaded to go faster, and the boys soon overhauled them.

Raymond ran up on one side of the donkey, and taking hold of his head, stopped him. The man, on the other side, drew a wicked-looking knife and reaching across the animal’s back made a lunge at Raymond. Sidney, who was a few steps behind, saw the movement and cried a warning to his brother, who leaped back in time to avoid the thrust.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” cried Raymond, and whipping out his revolver he covered the man with it.

The fellow stood, without flinching, watching them with gleaming eyes while Sidney removed the blankets and cloaks from the donkey’s back.

“Now, go on,” ordered Raymond, motioning up the trail.

The man sulkily took charge of his donkey, and drove the animal along without once looking back.