He paid the hired men off with dollars supplied by George and then they sat down to supper, the beach-combers camping near by and having the time of their lives with canned salmon, ship’s bread and peaches supplied for nothing.
Tommie had fallen in love with the mule. It had eaten half a Chicago Tribune blowing about on the sands and she was feeding it now with wafers, which the brute took in a gingerly and delicate manner, as though chicken and asparagus had been its up-bringing, instead of old gasoline cans and esparto grass.
“She’s made friends with that mule,” said George.
“She’s made friends with Satan,” said Hank. “Look at her talking to those greasers as if she knew their lingo.”
“She’s making them laugh,” said Candon.
An hour after supper the beach was at peace. Even the mule had fallen into the frame of the picture.
It was lying down by its sleeping masters. Away out across the water, the amber light of the Wear Jack showed beneath the stars.
An hour passed. Then things changed. The mule was lying dreaming, maybe, of more wafers, and in the starlight, like shadows, the forms of the three Mexicans, each with a shovel over its shoulder, were passing towards the sand-hole.