We rode hard the next two days. With our trailing remuda of ten horses, we were able to keep our mounts mostly fresh. The biggest problem we had was water. Even though we loaded our three mules down with several ten gallon canvas and India rubber bags filled with water, we found ourselves running short by the time we got near Battles Gap.

We stopped about two miles from my old homestead and replenished our water supply at a small spring that bubbled up from the Ogallala aquifer, which is part of the high plains aquifer system stretching from the Dakotas all the way to Texas. Of course, at the time, nobody knew that one of the world's largest aquifers even existed. It wasn't until 1898 that it was discovered and named.

It was already about five in the afternoon, and as Charley and I...

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