“I suppose when you get there you will stop and wait for us,” called Marian.
“Oh, yes,” he answered; but he did not take the hint and slacken his pace then.
His bump of locality was good, and although it was almost a year since he had been there, he made his way directly to the spot on the apex of the hill where a faint path led down on the other side. Here he paused, and, letting out a series of triumphant whoops, announced his arrival to his upward-toiling sisters.
One by one they joined him where he sat on a big gray rock, swinging his lariat, his most treasured possession, a new hair rope given him by an old Mexican a few weeks before.
“Dear me,” said Marian, all out of breath, as she set down the baby, whom she had been carrying the last part of the way; “whatever did you expect to lasso here, Delbert? Crabs?”
“No,” he replied, “burros! Didn’t you know there were burros here? There’s a herd of ’em. Clarence said probably the smugglers had to leave in a hurry and couldn’t stop to round up everything they had. Anyway, there’s burros here. Yes, and pigs, too. We saw their tracks; we didn’t see them, but Clarence said when he was here the first time he heard ’em grunting in the bushes.”
Marian was examining the surroundings. “I believe Clarence was right,” she said. “That is a real path certainly, but there is not a sign of it on the seaward side of the hill. Whoever lived down there used to come up here to this rock. You can see away out into the gulf from here, ever so many miles, but it is so bushy that no one here would ever be seen.”
“Yes,” assented Delbert; “Clarence called this Lookout Rock. Farther back this hill spreads out into a mesa.[2] It’s several miles long. Clarence said there were deer here, too; he saw ’em.”
[2] Pronounced mā-sȧ; a small tableland.
“An’ wil’ cats?” queried Esther.