“Oh, did I? I’d forgot—well, I wouldn’t have gone in the freighter, to ’Frisco of all places.”
“I didn’t know that. From what you said I should have stopped her.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Well,” said he, “I didn’t want to lose you. Hank and me didn’t want you to go off and leave us, you’d been such a good chum.”
“Well, forget it. I didn’t want to leave you, either. Not me! Why, this trip is the best holiday I’ve had for years. If that’s all you have to bother about, forget it.”
“There’s something else,” said he. “The McGinnis crowd is pretty sure to blow along down after us and there’ll be a fight, sure. You see, we’re held here by that sand; that will give them time to get on our tracks.”
“If they come, we’ll have to fight them,” said Tommie. “But, if you ask me, I don’t think there’s much fight in that lot, by what you say of them.”
“They’re toughs, all the same. I’m telling you, and I want you to choose right now—we can stay here and risk it, or push out and away back and put you down at Santa Barbara, give us the word.”
Tommie considered deeply for a moment. Then she said: “I’m not afraid. I reckon we can match them if it comes to scratching. No, we’ll stick. You see, there’s two things—you can’t put me back in Santa Barbara without the whole of this business coming out and Hank Fisher and Bud du Cane being guyed to death. Your ship is known, Althusen and that lot will give evidence—you can’t put me back out of the Wear Jack anyhow.”