The wind covered a passionate silence, as the two women, followed by Sam, yawning and stretching, made their way down the shrieking street. “It was true,” Innes was thinking. She had at last stumbled on the rout, but it was not a matter of personal, but moral untidiness; not a carelessness of pins or plates, of tapes or dishes. It was far worse; a slackness of ethics. It meant more unhappiness for Tom.
As she put her foot on the step leading to her tent, it discovered something, bulky, resistant.
“Sam,” she cried. “Come back!”
Both Sam and Mrs. Hardin came running from different directions. An Indian, dead-drunk, lay sprawling across her steps.
“Oh, suppose we had come alone?” moaned Gerty.
“Well, we didn’t,” retorted her sister with intentional rudeness. “What can you do with him, Sam?”
It was a half-hour before Sam could get the reeling Cocopah started toward Mexicali.
“Don’t forget to call me at five!” cried Innes after him.
Her aching muscles told her that she could not have slept four hours when the darky was back, knocking at her door.
“All right,” she pulled herself together. “I’ll be out in a minute.”