"Well, then, it'll be all right. I reckon it's time for me to be going now. Yuh better drive me home."
The road to Willow Springs lay straight across the mesa. Here and there, in the yellow expanse of sand, were patches of green mesquit, where some underground flow came near enough to the surface to slake their thirsty roots. Elsewhere the sand shifted noiselessly across the plain, under the touch of the wind, which fashioned innumerable oddly shaped hummocks, and then gently purred them away again, to heap on others.
After they had driven silently for some time, the woman spoke: "There's a man standing in that clump of cat's-claw ahead. Did yuh see him?"
Cassidy thoughtfully eased up the perspiring team. "I know him," he answered, although apparently he had not raised his eyes above the dash-board for a long time. "Name is Tommy."
"Well, what's Tommy hidin' in those bushes for?" demanded the woman.
"A feller broke into Number One Commissary last night."
"Did Tommy do it?"
"No, ma'am—not this time. His partner done it and skipped out."
"Does Jake think Tommy did it?"