“Cool off, Steve,” advised the blond man. “Think what a joke this is on Snake—you drinking up his licker. Wouldn’t it make him mad?”
A sudden hard grin split the pallid face. Steve sank back.
“That’s right, too—uh—what’s yer name?”
“Call me Hamp.”
“Hamp. Good ’nough. I dunno ye, an’ ye don’t b’long round here, but ye act right. Got anything to eat, Hamp? I been goin’ a long time, an’ it’s ’most took the tuck outen me.”
He began to blink a little uncertainly. The “licker” was fast getting in its work on his woefully empty stomach.
“Got a can of beans and some water, and they’re yours.”
“Gimme ’em!”
The demand crackled like an electric spark. The hard-set visage turned ravenous, and the wiry frame lifted itself and set its back against the wall. When Douglas tendered the opened can it was snatched and a quarter of its contents dumped into a grimy hand. An instant later the whole handful had been wolfed down and another was being stuffed into a fast-working mouth. When Marion came limping back from her mysterious pilgrimage only an empty tin and greasy lips remained to tell what had happened.
Unspeaking, the blond man opened another bean-can, put in a tin spoon, and handed it to the girl. She sank on a stone and began eating eagerly, but far more daintily than the boy. Douglas watched silently, but he nodded as he noted the instinctive difference in her way of feeding herself. Steve also watched, but with a different thought.