"I'll tell you ..." began Deveril, and broke short off there, as she and he, alert and tense once more, reminded that they were fugitives, listened to a sudden sound disturbing their silence. A sound unmistakable--a man at no great distance from them, but, fortunately, upon the farther side of the stream, and thus beyond the double screen of willows, was breaking his way through the brush. Both Deveril and Lynette crouched low, peering through the bushes. They could only make out that the man was coming up-stream. Once they caught a vague, blurred glimpse of his legs, faded overalls and ragged boots. Then they lost him entirely. They knew when he stopped and both waited breathlessly to know if he had come upon some sign of their own trail. But once more he went on, but now in such silence, as he crossed a little open spot, that they could scarcely make out a sound. Had it not been for the willows intervening, they could then have answered their own question, "Who is it?"--a question just now of supreme importance, of the importance of life and death. They lay lower; they strove as never before to catch some glimpse that would tell them what they wanted to know. The man stopped again; again went on. There was something guarded about his movements; they felt that he must have seen their tracks, that he was seeking in a roundabout way to come unexpectedly upon them. And then, because there was a narrow natural avenue through the brush, they were given one clear, though fleeting glimpse, of him ... of his face--a face as tense and watchful as their own had been ... the face of Mexicali Joe. CHAPTER VIII A glimpse, scarcely more it was, had been given them of Mexicali Joe's face. And at a considerable distance, at least for the reading of a man's look. But yet they marked how the face was haggard and drawn and furtive. Joe had no inkling of their presence. He had not seen their wisp of smoke; there was no wind setting toward him to carry him the smell of cooking trout. Plainly he had no desire for company other than his own. He, no less than they, fled from all pursuit. Again he was lost to them; he vanished, gone up-stream, beyond the thickets, no faintest sound of his footfalls coming back to them. From him they turned to each other, the same expression from the same flooding thought in their eyes. "We're on the jump and we'll keep on the jump!" said Deveril softly. "And at the same time, Lynette Brooke, we'll stick as close as the Lord'll let us to Mexicali Joe's coat-tails! Don't you worry; he'll go back as sure as shooting to his gold-mine, if only to make certain that no one else has squatted on it. And where he drives a stake, we'll drive ours right alongside!" "It's funny ... that he hasn't gotten any further ... that he should come this way, too...."