At last he crept along the edge of the thicket and lay there close to the car. He was still panting. That glimpse full into the boy's face had almost undone him. He was hungry for food, and hungry for human companionship. He wanted to go to the car, to rear up on the side to scratch at the curtains. But yonder, a hundred feet away, back and forth before a fire they had built, moved the men. And against the box they had taken from the car leaned the gun.
Within the car he heard the voice of the woman, low, confidential, assuring, and his ears flattened with gratitude and trust. The man wouldn't hurt him, she was telling the boy. Sometimes he talked to everybody that way. He was an old grouch, that's what he was. She whispered something.
"To-morrow?" the boy asked eagerly.
"Hush! Sure. That's it—to-morrow!"
"Did F'ank go home, Nita?"
"Sure he went home."
"I saw a dog in the bushes!"
The woman laughed. "You're seeing things, old scout. What about some supper?"
She got out of the car and went quickly to the fire the men had built. Without a word to them she gathered up something to eat and came quickly back. Even in the darkness Frank could see the light in her eyes.
The boy must have gone to sleep soon after that. The moon, big, weird, solemn, rose slowly over yonder parallel range of mountains. The men at the fire talked low and mumbling between long intervals. Presently the heavy man rose, skirted the thicket, and stumbled off across the field toward the road. The smell of him polluted the air no more. Then the woman came quietly out of the car and joined the other man at the fire.