If only Joe, poor stupid fool, as Deveril savagely called him in his heart, would make a bolt for it! Then there'd surely be such a drawing of their eyes to him that they would not see a white elephant tethered at the door! But Joe stood as if his feet had grown into the ground. Save for his continued mutterings, as Joe poured forth his eloquent Spanish curses, he would have appeared a man bereft of all volition. And Taggart and Young Gallup and Shipton came on at a run. Deveril clutched his club; he turned an inch or two to be ready. Lynette, lying so close to him, felt his body stiffen and guessed his purpose, and this time it was her hand closing tight upon his forearm, warning him to hold to caution as long as there was hope. The three came steadily on, hastening all that they could up the steep slope. A moment ago, when first Taggart called out, Joe might have eluded them had he been lightning-swift and ready to take chances. But now that he had hesitated, it was clear that his most shadowy hope of escape was gone. He stood motionless, cursing them and his luck. Babe Deveril's fingers were tight, as tight as rage could weld them about his oak stick. At that moment he could have welcomed the excuse to leap out with the unexpectedness of a cataclysm and the rush of a catapult, to heave his club upward and bring it down, full force, upon Taggart's head. For now he had the added rancour in his heart that Jim Taggart, with his following, had chosen this one moment to come up with them, just as Babe Deveril was counting in full confidence upon the first square meal in twenty-four hours. Taggart, less than threatening his safety, was stealing the supper which he had counted on having from Mexicali Joe. Jim Taggart began to laugh, more in malice than in mirth, and, most of all, in an evil, gloating triumph. He came on, hurrying; he almost trod on Lynette's boot. Instinctively she jerked away from him; yet only because Taggart was so gloatingly bent upon his quarry he did not note her movement, or must have supposed that he had set a stone rolling. "Ho!" cried Taggart. "Joe's a good kid after all, boys! He's waited for us, and he's got us a piping-hot supper! Wonder how he guessed we were starved like wildcats?" "Damn him!" Lynette heard Deveril, and her fingers gripped him with a new agony of warning and supplication for silence. "What's that?" demanded Taggart, thinking that Gallup or Shipton had spoken. "You robbers!" cried Joe nervously. "Already you tryin' rob me, las' night. Now you tryin' rob me! I tell you...." "Shut up!" snapped Taggart. "Back into your dirty den and we'll have a nice little talk with you." "I tell you...."