"Want any help?" Bill called after him. But Mr. Emmett shook his head, waved a hand and went on.
Tommy, who had retreated into the tent as the party drew near, pushed his head through the opening and goggled at the group fifty yards away. They were spreading a wall tent, preparing to make camp in the lee of a rocky ledge. Tommy wiped the tobacco stain from his lips with the back of his hand and glanced sidelong up at Bill.
"That's Al Freeman they got wit' 'em," he drawled in his complaining, questioning way. "An' how he c'd git wit' 'em I dunno, fer I left him in Goldfield—I did—and him owin' me tin dollars and denying all knowledge of that same. He's a liar an' a t'ief, Mr. Dale, an' them that trusts him is like t' find their t'roats cut some marrnin' an' their pockets turned out.
"How he got to Las Vegas t' join up with these fellers I dunno—fer he was in Goldfield whin I left, and there can't be two of 'im—an' the devil wit' his hands full a'ready just wit' wan of 'im. I'd tip off them gov-ment men, Mr. Dale, I sure would. He's worse ner a rattler in camp, an' he's the kind that'll lie wit' 'is ears open an' then run an' make bad use o' what he hears, Mr. Dale. He's a durrty claim-robber fer wan t'ing, an' if yuh've got annything here wort' robbin', Mr. Dale, yuh'd best set yer tent over it whilst Al Freeman's on the mountain. It's the Gawd's trut' I tellin' yuh—an' yuh better slip them experts the word—though how he got wit' 'em I dunno, fer I left him in Goldfield; I did that!"
"That's mighty queer," Bill assented dubiously. "If you're sure of that, we'll step lightly till we know the bunch better. Keep your eye on him, Tommy, until I find out more about it. They won't get that tent up in time to save a wetting; I can see that right now."
The man Tommy said was Al had unpacked one burro, but it was certain they would not have time to make themselves even passably comfortable. Even now the tent they were erecting was bellying like a balloon in a sudden blast of wind, and while they struggled with it pegs and guy ropes snapped loose. The short man, whose name was Rayfield, evidently made a suggestion. All three looked toward Bill's camp. Then, as the earth quivered under a deafening crash of thunder, Al hurriedly tied the burros to a couple of stunted junipers, wadded the tent hastily into an ungainly bundle and thrust it between two rocks.
Heads down against the wind, holding their hats on with both hands, they came running. Bill opened the tent flaps and held it against the wind until the strangers and Tommy were inside. Then he double-tied the flaps and turned, grinning hospitably. His twelve-by-fourteen tent was more than comfortably full now, what with the piles of supplies, Bill's stove and table and bed, and the five men. But it was a shelter, set shrewdly against just such an emergency as this storm. It faced away from the wind, and a ledge protected it from the full force of the gale.
Thunder, lightning, wind—then an abrupt silence, a holding of the breath. Tommy, crouched down in his corner, his shoulder held carefully away from the canvas wall, stared owl-like through his thick glasses.
"She's comin'," he mumbled dolefully.
She came. All the water in the clouds seemed to have been dumped unceremoniously upon the tent. A fine mist beat through the roof and sides until warp and woof became saturated, and shrunk to a waterproof texture that sent the water running off in streams.