Shipton came nearer. She felt Babe Deveril stir, ever so slightly. Her only concern now was: Would he strike just at the very second that he should? Would he strike a second too early, before it was necessary, and thus needlessly give himself away? Would he strike just a second too late, giving Shipton first the time to see and cry out?
"God, I'm stiff and sore," Shipton was muttering.
His foot struck something, and he reached down, thinking it was a bit of wood. But it was a stone, dirt-covered, and he kicked at it and came on. Now he was not two steps away. Again he stooped; as he stooped, Babe Deveril raised himself an inch or two higher. But now Shipton found a fragment of a pine log, half rotted and of little use as fuel. But in his present mood it served him; he picked it up and turned back to the dug-out. Lynette heard Deveril's slowly expelled breath.
Within there was a scraping of frying-pan on stove top. They saw a tin plate handed to Gallup on his bunk; Gallup began eating, noisy about it; eating like a dog. Shipton went in with his log. Taggart caught it from him, broke it up by striking it against the hard-packed dirt floor, and began stoking the stove. A fresh gush of sparks shot up from Joe's chimney. Shipton was demanding to be fed ... and for God's sake give him a shot of coffee.
"Now's our chance," whispered Deveril. "None too good, but the best we're going to have! Ready?"
And her whisper came back to him, "Always ready!"
"Now," he whispered. "Off to the right; slow and quiet; if once we can snake across this open place and into the timber over there...."
"And now, Señor Joe," came Taggart's voice, and they knew from the sound that Taggart, mouth full, was eating ravenously, "we got you!"
"Sure you got me," Joe rasped out at him, and still there remained defiance in little Mexicali Joe. "Fine! But what you do with me? You can't eat me, an' nobody ever yet put any bounty on my hide, an' when you got me ... you no got nothin'. An', cabrone, what I got I keep him!"
Taggart laughed at him in Taggart's ugly style.