Ned would gladly have made the drink a deep one, but he denied himself, and, when he returned the canteen, its supply was diminished but little.

He knew better than the giver how precious the water would become.
Ned was standing at the edge of the hollow, and his head was just about on a level with the surrounding prairie.

After his look at the Mexican circle, something whistled by his ear.

It was an unpleasant sound that he knew well, one marking the passage of a bullet, and he dropped down instantly.

Then he cautiously raised himself up again, and, a half dozen others who had heard the shot did the same.