Lawless saw Pierre half rise and turn his head, listening. Presently he, too, heard the sound-the soft crash of crisp grass under the feet. He raised himself to a sitting posture and waited.
Presently a tall figure came out of the dusk into the light of their fire, and a long arm waved a greeting at them. Both Lawless and Pierre rose to their feet. The stranger was dressed in buckskin, he carried a rifle, and around his shoulder was a strong yellow cord, from which hung a bugle.
“How!” he said, with a nod, and drew near the fire, stretching out his hands to the blaze.
“How!” said Lawless and Pierre.
After a moment Lawless drew from his blanket a flask of brandy, and without a word handed it over the fire. The fingers of the two men met in the flicker of flames, a sort of bond by fire, and the stranger raised the flask.
“Chin-chin,” he said, and drank, breathing a long sigh of satisfaction afterwards as he handed it back; but it was Pierre that took it, and again fingers touched in the bond of fire. Pierre passed the flask to Lawless, who lifted it.
“Chin-chin,” he said, drank, and gave the flask to Pierre again, who did as did the others, and said “Chin-chin” also.
By that salutation of the east, given in the far north, Lawless knew that he had met one who had lighted fires where men are many and close to the mile as holes in a sieve.
They all sat down, and tobacco went round, the stranger offering his, while the two others, with true hospitality, accepted.
“We heard you over there—it was you?” said Lawless, nodding towards Point o’ Bugles, and glancing at the bugle the other carried.