“Search me,” replied Hank, “but it don’t matter, the name, it’s a town anyhow.”
“And suppose, while we’re hanging on here, those Mexicans come at us?” asked George.
Hank had forgotten the Mexicans.
“If they do,” said he, “we’ll have to fight them, that’s all. We’ve got the spades, and two Americans are a match for a dozen greasers, and there’s not likely to be that number.”
George got up and walked off down to the sea edge. He seemed to be thinking things over.
Hank found himself alone with Tommie.
“You meant three Americans,” said she.
“Sure,” said Hank, “you’d put up as good a fight as any of us, I believe.”
Hank had never dealt much with women-kind, except maybe in that horrible business liaison of his with Mrs. Driscoll, and though he had read the “Poems of Passion” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox he had no language at all to garb his sentiments with, if you can dignify with the title of sentiment a desire to eat Tommie.