“What’s the matter with the sand?” asked Hank as he contemplated the floor of the hole. “Looks as if it had been beaten down with a shovel.”
“Shovel—nothing—” said George, “it’s their flat feet, come on!”
By half past eleven o’clock, Candon reckoned that the depth required had been reached if not passed.
“We’ll get it this evening,” said he, “as sure’s my name’s Bob Candon.”
“Hope so,” said George.
As they turned to the tents for dinner and siesta, they found that the Mexicans were still on the beach a bit to the southward, strolling along by the sea edge. Then they came back northwards.
“I wish those greasers would go,” said George.
When they turned in for the mid-day siesta, the beach-combers seemed to have made a little camp for the purpose of rest and cigarette smoking half-way between the sea edge and the southern defile in the cliffs.
George slept, at first the sleep of the just, then began the sleep of canned kippered herrings and 80° in the shade. Tyrebuck was buried alive somewhere on the beach and they were trying to locate him without treading on him; then, having seemingly given up this quest, they were seated playing cards with Hank’s late partner, the lady who could put a whole potato in her mouth. They were playing a new sort of game which the ingenious Hank had invented and which he called Back to Front. That is to say they were holding their cards so that each player could only see the backs of his own hand and the fronts of his partner’s hand. It was bridge, moreover, and they were playing for potato points. How long this extremely intellectual game lasted, it is impossible to say. It was suddenly interrupted.