Strubell turned to Lattin and spoke:
“Bell’s cunning, but he does not dream about the spy glasses.”
“We’re bound to hear from him before morning,” replied Lattin.
They did not mean that their words should be overheard, but Nick caught them all, though he affected ignorance.
The next sentences were meant for the youths.
“Hadn’t we better move over the trail into the hills, Ard?” asked the younger Texan, as though the idea had just come to him.
“Why should we do that?” inquired the other, as if in surprise.
“Well, you know of that spring where we’ve camped many a time, and once had the brush with half a hundred Comanches. There are more rocks and bowlders there, and everything is a blamed sight better for a fight than it is here.”
“Now, Baker, you aint so foolish as to think Bell and the others mean to disturb us?” asked Strubell, apparently forgetting the words uttered by himself only a few minutes before.