"I know that, lieutenant, and so you may rely on me doing anything you direct."
"I know that too! Good, good—'tis time. You will see me ere long, Leon."
The Drudge went his way without further observations.
"Now I am left to myself," remarked Joe, sliding his bowie knife in its sheath and feeling that his revolvers were capped. "I shall never get such another chance to shine or be snuffed out. If I do not succeed in finding out some certainty to work upon, why, I'll—No, no, 'it'll never do to gib it up so, Mr. Brown!'" he concluded, humming a nigger minstrel song, which teaches the very American moral of Never Despair.
He took a full "square" look at the eternal lamp in the captain's dwelling, but, instead of crossing the camp towards it, he turned away and skirted the rocks. As soon as he reached a thorny bush rather thick, he parted the twigs at the risk of tearing his hands, and slipped into the very centre, as if, like the fools in the nursery jingle, he meant to scratch out his eyes.
As one sometimes finds among those old natives of the Southwest, who sit up all night at the gambling table, Joe was a true noctambulist: he had the wild beasts' gift to see at night. Otherwise, it were difficult to explain the unerring step with which he progressed through the dusk. Probably he had clearly traced in his mind the line he was following.