Adams siding with Rude, who knew the plains, said: "Mirage! the lure of the desert!" Yet dominated by a force too powerful for them to resist, they followed the buffalo-hunter.

All day the gleaming lake beckoned them onward, and seemed to recede.

All day the drab clouds scudded before the cold north wind.

In the gray twilight, the lake suddenly lay before them, as if it had opened at their feet.

The men rejoiced, the horses lifted their noses and sniffed the damp air.
The whinnies of the horses, the clank of harness, and splash of water, the whirl of ducks did not blur out of Jones's keen ear a sound that made him jump.