"This here coffee'll fix you right," responded Overland Red, grinning. "Didn't know I was a pote, did you? Now if I was a doc, I'd give you a shot in the arm that would put you to sleep. Seein' I ain't, it's coffee for yours."
"Do you think they will follow us?" Winthrop asked presently.
"As sure as snakes," said Overland. "And this here water-hole is the first place they'll strike for. They'll wait till mornin' to find our trail."
"When they do find it?"
"I'll show 'em a Mexican trick with a hole in it. You go to sleep, pardner."
The moon rolled down to the rim of the world. The infinitesimal mountain peaks rose slowly along the lower edge of the flat silver shield, black and growing bolder in outline and size as they blotted half, three quarters, finally all of the burnished radiance. Then along the edge of the far range ran an instant delicate light, a light that melted into space and was gone, leaving a palpitating glory of myriad summer stars.
The little fire died down. The barren outland wastes slumbered in the charitable dusk of night.
Overland, cross-legged on his blanket, smoked moodily. His thoughts drifted out on the tide of silence to Moonstone Cañon and Collie and the Rose Girl, Louise Lacharme. For them he planned impossibly. Of them he dreamed absurd dreams.
Out of the flotsam of his pondering came memories of other nights such as this, desert nights on the border ranges of old Mexico—that lost world of his adventurous youth. Mingled with his waking dreams were the sounds of many familiar names—Sonora, Trevino, Nueva Laredo, Nava, San José, Las Cruces, Nogales, Yuma, San Antonio,—each a burning ember of memory that glowed and faded while the music of silver strings and singing girls pulsed rhythmically in the stillness—to break at last into the querulous wailing of a lone coyote. Winthrop stirred restlessly and muttered.