Considerable luggage was shifted before the canteens were finally excavated from the floor of the tonneau; both canteens, because the first one was so completely empty that it made no sound when Abington impatiently shook it.
He was standing beside the car, mechanically sloshing a pint or so of water in the second grimy, flat-bottomed canteen, when a dust-covered roadster came coasting down the four-per-cent grade of the cañon half a mile or so away. He glanced at the approaching car, set the canteen in the sand and helped himself to a cigarette from a silver-trimmed leather case. Abington was leaning against the rear fender in the narrow bit of shade when the roadster came down upon him, slowed with a squealing of dry brakes and stopped perforce. In the rocks and deep sand that bordered the road a caterpillar truck could scarcely have driven around the stalled car.
“In trouble?” A perspiring tanned face leaned out, squinting ahead into the sun through desert-wrinkled eyelids.
“None whatever,” Abington calmly replied, smiling to make the words cheerful. “I’m waiting here for the car to cool off a bit. I hope you’re not in a hurry?”
The driver of the roadster slanted a quick glance at his companion, who slumped sidewise in the seat with his hat pulled low over his eyes.
“Kinda. Got plenty of water?” This in a hopeful tone, which his next sentence explained. “I’m kinda short, myself, but I’ll hit Mina before long, so I ain’t worrying. How much you going to need? Half a canteen do you any good?”
The stalled driver walked forward with a loose, negligent stride which nevertheless covered the ground with amazing ease. From under straight, black brows his eyes looked forth with apparent negligence, though they saw a great deal with a flicking glance or two.
“It might take me back to where I can fill my canteens, sheriff. I don’t suppose there’s a quart of water in the radiator, and everything’s empty. My fault. I discharged a couple of men I had with me, and I should have been on my guard against some such trick as this. As it was, I failed to stand over them while they unloaded their plunder from the car. At any rate, here I am for the present.”
“Tough luck. I’ll let you have what water I’ve got, but it ain’t much. She kept heating on me, climbing the summit. How far you going?”
“Back to Mina. I want to find those two fellows I let off there.” Abington’s questing black eyes rested on the roadster’s other occupant, shifted to the driver’s hard yet not unkindly face, and he waved the cigarette significantly.