He felt Mamie tottering still on her hind feet; then a jerk as if some one had given her a cut with a whip, and over she went backward. He pushed her neck from him and fell back, and knew no more, until Cal’s low tones, as he was being lifted.
‘It’s all right. Kid. Chester’s good for both of us.’
For a time, in spite of that, he thought he still had Mamie round the neck, but it was Cal’s ample chest—Slim’s Indian in an easy gallop alongside.
‘Where’s the sedan?’ he finally mumbled.
‘Lord, Kid, she’s surprised papa by this time!’
XII
FLASHLIGHT AND FAWNSKIN
Elbert kept shaking his head; no bones broken there or elsewhere, but seemingly no end to the phases of his coming-to. It dawned on him there had been a blank from the time Mamie went over backwards, until he found himself here on Chester with Cal. He regretted missing some part in there—going through the Mexican lines.
‘Where’s Mamie?’ he demanded, jerking erect.
‘Came through all right. Slim’s got her safe.’
Now Elbert gradually made out that they were in ‘Mexicali’ Burton’s oil town. They had been halted—first a voice in Mexican, then American, Cal answering quietly. He saw the sedan, and heard from aside in the dark, Mamie’s long-drawn wheeze, the same protest as when she had refused advance to the hitching-rail before the Señora’s house in Nacimiento. There was one cabin door from which light streamed, and in the aperture a blocky, bareheaded man appeared, legs planted wide apart, the air suddenly burned by withering profanities.