The mule flopped her one ear wisely at Pete, and docilely allowed herself to be led to water. Both travelers drank and laved themselves, and then seated on a rock at the edge of the watercourse made a meal off the remnants of Jack's stock.
"Last of the grub, eh?" inquired Pete, as the final morsels vanished.
Jack nodded.
"Well, we'll have to tighten our belts a few notches then, I reckon," was all Pete said. It took more than the prospect of a little hunger ahead to alarm the old plainsman.
All at once his eyes fell on an object lying some distance up the creek. It reposed on the flat top of a rock and seemed to be a shallow metal basin of some sort.
"Hello!" exclaimed Pete, as he sighted it, "there's a clew to our neighbor of last night—the one who dug out so unsociable when Maud began cutting up."
"Cutting you up, I guess you mean," laughed Jack, gazing at Pete's scratched countenance, and a further facial decoration he carried in the shape of a big goose egg over one eye.
"Hum, I guess my style of beauty has been considerably damaged," grinned Pete, "and look at that one-eared demon will you, grinning at us as if she enjoyed it."
They both had to burst out laughing, forgetting their other troubles at the queer sidelong glance Maud bestowed on them. It was as if she said:
"Didn't I have a lark last night?"