“I’ve been up the hill, but no sign of Carrero—or Carroll,” said Morrison. “He took a shot at us in the night, though—a long-range shot, fired away up the shore. I couldn’t see the flash. But look what I’ve got here.”
He opened a door into one of the tiny cabins of the Chita, and revealed Louie the Lope stretched in the berth, covered with a blanket. The young gangster moved his head slightly and moaned.
“Found him lying in a heap just on the shore this morning,” said Morrison, regarding Louie with aversion. “He’s pretty sick. He’s had a bad cold coming on for several days; I thought it might run to pneumonia. And then your knocking him out, and his lying out in the damp all night, didn’t do him any good. I had almost to carry him aboard.”
Lang would not have minded killing Louie, but the idea of disease aroused all his medical instincts. He put his hand on the gunman’s forehead, felt his pulse. Louie muttered something, and appeared only semiconscious.
“Not much fever,” said Lang. “A little concussion, maybe, from the blow on the head. I think he’ll be all right. I’ll look after him later. I’ve wasted too much time already, sleeping.”
His stomach almost shrieked for food, in fact, and his breakfast was waiting for him. There was no trouble now about appetite. He had to restrain himself lest he eat too much. He devoured Chilean maize mush, corn bread, potatoes, pork, with ravenous relish, while Eva served him, and at the end he felt more than ever invigorated. It was the first really square meal he had eaten since Valparaiso.
“Now, we can’t both leave the ship,” he said to Morrison. “Carroll might circle back on us, Eva can’t be left here alone. You’ll stay on guard. I’ll scout up the hill a little. If I need you I’ll fire two shots rapidly. I suppose you’ve got a rifle to spare?”
He had two, and Lang’s plan was so obviously right that he could not make any objection. Only he stipulated that if Lang found nothing in the course of half an hour he should come back and give Morrison his turn.
It was a fair day for once. There was no fog, no wind, and the sun almost shone by moments from the gray sky. Lang crossed the boat bridge to shore, clambered up the side of the ravine, and started up the long slope.
He felt full of elation; full of confidence. It was not likely that he would find any trace of the fugitive so near the beach, but he searched carefully into all the copses and thickets as he worked up the shore, till he came to his old camp.