Her heart leaped up; her life fires burned bright and warm again; the pain went out of her. She began to run....
"Sh! Look! Off to the left in that little clearing."
On the mountain slope just ahead of them she marked the clearing and, since there, too, the shadows were darkening, she saw nothing else. She wondered what he saw or thought that he saw. He pointed, and she, with straining eyes, made out a shadow which moved; Joe, going up a steep, open trail. And just ahead of Joe a dark, square-cornered blot....
"A house ... a cabin...."
"A dirty dugout, most likely, and from the look of it. But, as sure as you're born, there's Mexicali Joe's mountain headquarters. A clump of bushes, willows, you can be sure, not ten feet from his door; that will be his spring. And inside his shack ... a box of grub, Lady Lynette! And if Joe doesn't have company for dinner, I'll eat your hat."
"I haven't any," said Lynette. "But we'd probably have to eat our own shoes. Come on; let's hurry.... What are you waiting for?"
"I want to whet my appetite by loitering a while.... Listen, Lynette; after all, there's no great hurry any longer. First thing, a hot supper is what is needed, and Joe can make as good a fire as we can. You can gamble that he won't waste any time, and that he'll cook a panful!"
"He might have only one panful ... and he might start in on it cold...."
"And if he has only that limited amount and it belongs to him and he wants it, you don't mean to say that you would seek to take it away from him? That's robbery...."
"We'll play square with him, Babe Deveril, and give him exactly one-third. And man may call it robbery, but God and nature won't. Come...."