Under the chaparral tops it was black as ink once more. The land was covered with a deep carpet of the bushes’ tiny shattered leaves, and was unobstructed save for the sturdy trunks of the growth. Falcon the Flunky could hear the girl wriggling over the cackling leaves ahead of him, and set his course by the sounds. Now and then he collided with a trunk, and now and then the prickly foliage, three feet above his head, raked off his hat. Birds twittered and fluttered away, disturbed from their nap just before the dawn.
Then of a sudden the crawlers came out in an open space and lay panting. The sky had lighted amazingly during their progress through the dark. Manzanita lay flat, with her arms outstretched and a smile of accomplishment on her young lips.
“Well,” she sighed at last, sitting erect and picking the trash from her hair, “we’re here. And they won’t find us in a thousand years. In these mountains there are hundreds of chaparral patches like this one, and no one ever thinks of crawling into them. No sensible person, that is to say. Mart and I do it, though. We’re always hunting for hidden treasure, you know, old Spanish mines, and skeletons and things like that.”
The Falcon looked about.
Great, gaunt gray rocks upreared themselves in the middle of the opening, which was circular and not over a hundred feet in diameter, with heavy chaparral forming a dense wall on all sides.
“There’s water in those rocks,” she informed him. “That’s how we might stay here forever, if we had enough grub. Down below, on our right as we came up, are a creek and sinegas; and I presume the water here is a part of that same system. But no one would suspect that there is water here, in the heart of this thicket. Chaparral won’t stand wet feet. Too much water kills it. That accounts for the break here in the heart of the patch. Mart and I are the sole discoverers, of course. Now, any one trying to find us will know that we must be near water in order to live. And as chaparral is invariably on dry, poor soil, they’ll never dream we could be in here, with water right beside us.”
“How long do you propose to stay here, Manzanita?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied lightly, rising to her feet. “Till we can collect our wits, anyway. I love this sort of thing. Mart and I’ve played fugitive so much, but never before have I had the chance to do anything of the kind for a really truly reason.”
“You’re only an imaginative kid,” he sternly accused. “What will your father think! He’ll be distracted, dear.”
She remained thoughtful and silent for a time.