At the time I merely caught at the
word "meat." It seemed to me I could have eaten the animal
entire, hide, hoofs, and tallow. As a matter of fact, it was
mighty lucky they didn't have any meat. If they had, we'd
probably have killed ourselves with it. I suppose the calabash
was about the best thing for us under the circumstances.
The Mexican went out to hunt up his horse. I called the girl
back.
"How far is it to Mollyhay?" I asked her.
"A league," said she.
So we bad been near our journey's end after all, and Denton was
probably all right.
The Mexican went away horseback. The girl fed us calabash. We
waited.
About one o'clock a group of horsemen rode over the hill. When
they came near enough I recognised Denton at their head. That
man was of tempered steel--
They had followed back along the beach, caught our trail where we
had turned off, and so discovered us. Denton had fortunately
found kind and intelligent people.
We said good-bye to the Mexican girl. I made Schwartz give her
one of his gold pieces.
But Denton could not wait for us to say "hullo" even, he was so
anxious to get back to town, so we mounted the horses he had
brought us, and rode off, very wobbly.
Pages:
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199