She left her sentence unfinished.

Jo Ann nodded understandingly. Those men would have been more angry than ever if they had known that she and Florence had been listening to them and peeking into their car. It was too bad she and Florence couldn't have got some water, but she would far rather run the risk of finding water elsewhere than for those men to have discovered them there.

Florence seemed to have read her thoughts as she remarked the next moment, "Surely we'll be able to find some water soon. We've just got to get some before we go much farther."

The engine soon began to boil again, and Jo Ann was almost in despair. "Now what'll we do?"

The next instant Florence cried excitedly, "There's a water carrier! We can get water from him."

"You mean that donkey cart jogging ahead there with the barrel on it?"

"Yes. The Mexican's carrying water to some ranch house or village, and maybe we can get him to sell us some."

In a flurry of dust Jo Ann stopped the car beside the cart, and Florence called out in Spanish to the old wrinkled water carrier, "Buenos tardes, señor. Will you sell us a little water?"

At the sound of Florence's voice the lazy burro promptly stopped, and the man stood peering at them from under his big sombrero.

"See," Florence went on, "we need water for our car. Will you sell us some?"

"Muy bien." He nodded his head and reached for the bucket Jo Ann was holding out to him.

"Thank my stars someone knows where to get water in this awful desert!" Miss Prudence exclaimed, feeling relieved at sight of the water. "Do you suppose that is the only way the people have of getting water out here, Florence?"

"Probably so."

"Well, I'd certainly hate to live here! Imagine having to drink that water! And washing dishes and clothes in a thimbleful of water wouldn't suit me at all, either. I have the whole Atlantic Ocean right at the edge of my home in Massachusetts."

Florence smiled at the contrast of life in the desert and on the seacoast.

After they had filled the radiator and their thermos jug with the precious fluid, they drove off, the girls and 

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