"The men are friendly, and we may be able to get them to guide us to water." The natives, as they came up, grinned and rubbed their stomachs, to show that they were hungry.
"I understand," the Captain said; "you want a sheep, we want water;" and he held up his hand to his mouth and lifted his elbow as if in the act of drinking.
In two or three minutes the natives understood what he wanted, and beckoned to the men to follow.

The tired sheep were got onto their legs again, and half a mile away the party arrived at a pool in what in wet weather was the bed of a river.

A sheep was at once handed over to the natives, and when the men had satisfied their thirst another sheep was killed for their own use.
After a great deal of trouble the natives were made to understand that the white men wanted one of their party to go with them as a guide, and to take them always to water holes, and a boy of fifteen was handed over to them in exchange for two more sheep, and at daybreak the next morning they started again for the interior, feeling much exhilarated by the piece of luck that had befallen them.

They traveled for four days more, and then, considering that the soldiers had ceased their pursuit long ago, they encamped for ten days, enjoying to the utmost their recovered freedom and their immunity from work of any kind.

Then they returned to the neighborhood of the settlements, and broke up, as their leader proposed, into pairs.
They had been there but a short time before the depredations committed roused the settlers to band themselves together.