He swore, and called me almost everything except a good Christian; he even expressed the wish that I, his friend, might be sent to a certain place where the heat is most intense, and the fire is never quenched.
At about eleven o'clock, when his pains were most severe, a dark cloud, the first we had seen for months, came over us, and a little rain began to fall, when I at once opened our little camp kettle and turned the lid upside down, and into both kettle and lid there fell perhaps two or three teaspoonfuls of pure water, every drop of which I gave to the sufferer, whereupon he expressed thanks for another God-send, and at once apologized for bestowing unmerited abuse on me.

He afterwards often asserted that he believed that the little rain-cloud was sent by God for his special benefit, and that the water caught from that cloud was the sweetest and best that he had ever tasted.

I did not doubt the latter half of the above statement, but I did have some doubt about the truth of the former half when I called to mind the scene which followed my refusal to bleed the horse.

Whether the small quantity of water gave him much relief, or not, I do not know, but I do know that he soon became better and slept some while I watched.

He was quite feeble next morning when I put him on the old sore-backed mule, where he rode most of the time for the next four days, while the little horse carried our baggage, and I led the way as usual, on foot.
For four days from the time Field ate the little red berries we did not have a drop of water except the two or three teaspoonfuls which the stingy cloud left to save the life of the "berry-eater." We were still on the desert, or in the mountains east of the river, traveling hard during the day, and burning up with fever in the night.