"Take that," Taggart told him viciously. And, his ugly voice thick with threat: "And thank your Dago saints I only used my fist! Next time, so help me, I'll bash you with a rifle barrel. Say, Cliff...."
"Say it," drawled Cliff.
"Scare up some dry wood; the fire's near out. And, Joe, you dig up a candle or lamp or something. I'd like a little light in this stinking hole."
Joe, though with infuriated mutterings, did as bid. Slowly the gaunt form of Cliff Shipton rose from the rough-hewn log.
"God, I'm tired," he said. And then, when no one thought to sympathize, he demanded querulously: "Say, Mex, where's your wood-pile?"
Gallup laughed at him.
"Imagine the lazy hound having a wood-pile! Skirmish around, Cliff, and pick up some dead sticks."
Joe had found a stub of candle, and now its pale light vaguely illuminated the dugout's interior. Since there was but the one opening, the squat door, Deveril still saw only Gallup. Gallup by now was sitting upon the narrow bunk at the back of the room, his rifle between his knees, the shadow of his hat hiding his face. Shipton set his own rifle down against the outside wall and began groping with his feet for bits of wood.
"It's getting awful dark for this kind of thing," he was telling himself in his eternally complaining voice. "Ain't he got a box or a chair or a table or something in there that'll burn?" he called.
No one paid any attention to him and Shipton, scuffling gropingly with his feet, widened his search. And now Lynette and Deveril scarcely breathed. For it seemed inevitable that he was coming straight toward the brushy-fringed spring where they lay. Deveril was now on his left elbow, his body raised slightly, his legs drawn up under him, so that he could readily fling himself to his feet, his oak club in his right hand. Lynette understood and was ready, too; if Shipton came dangerously near, she knew that it was Deveril's intent to drop him in his tracks. Then there would remain but the one thing to do; to leap up and run for it, run blindly, plunging into the nearest shadows, to run on and on while men shot after them.