"The first half chance we get," whispered Deveril, guardedly, "we've got to sneak out of this! Lie still; I can see them without moving. That man with the hawk face is turned this way."
He could see neither Joe nor Taggart in the dugout. Gallup he could see, barely across the threshold now, watching Taggart and the Mexican. The man Shipton, evidently fagged from a hard day of it, had slumped down on the log that served as door-step, and faced outward, save when now and then he half turned to glance curiously at the sheriff and his captive.
"So we nabbed you, eh, Mexico?" gibed Taggart. "You damn little tricky shrimp! To think you could put one across on me!"
"Gatham you!" shrilled Joe. "You big t'ief, you try one time an' you see! I ain't do nothin' to you; I got the right...."
"Oh, shut up!" muttered Taggart impatiently. "Dry your palaver for once. I'll give you chance enough to spill over when I get good and ready." Outside Lynette and Deveril heard a sound which, in their hunger, they were quick to read aright; Taggart, also hungry, had stepped to the stove and had dragged a heavy iron frying-pan to him, investigating its content. "Phew!" growled Taggart. "You infernal garlic hound! Well, the jerked meat ought to go all right. And coffee, huh? Come on, boys; we'll feed up, and then we'll tell Joe what's in the wind."
"I ain't got much grub," Joe shouted back at him. "An' I need it mysel'. You go...."
[Pg 120]
There was the sound of a blow and of scuffling feet, the thudding of a body against the wall.
"Take that," Taggart told him viciously. And, his ugly voice thick with threat: "And thank your Dago saints I only used my fist! Next time, so help me, I'll bash you with a rifle barrel. Say, Cliff...."
"Say it," drawled Cliff.
"Scare up some dry wood; the fire's near out. And, Joe, you dig up a candle or lamp or something. I'd like a little light in this stinking hole."
Joe, though with infuriated mutterings, did as bid. Slowly the gaunt form of Cliff Shipton rose from the rough-hewn log.
"God, I'm tired," he said. And then, when no one thought to sympathize, he demanded querulously: "Say, Mex, where's your wood-pile?"
Gallup laughed at him.
"Imagine the lazy hound having a wood-pile! Skirmish around, Cliff, and pick up some dead sticks."
Joe had found a stub of candle, and now its pale light vaguely illuminated the dugout's interior. Since there was but the one opening, the squat door, Deveril still saw only Gallup. Gallup by now was sitting upon the narrow bunk at the back of the room, his rifle between his knees, the shadow of his hat hiding his face. Shipton set his own rifle down against the outside wall and began groping with his feet for bits of wood.
"It's getting awful dark for this kind of thing," he was telling himself in his eternally complaining voice. "Ain't he got a box or a chair or a table or something in there that'll burn?" he called.
No one paid any attention to him and Shipton, scuffling gropingly with his feet, widened his search. And now Lynette and Deveril scarcely breathed. For it seemed inevitable that he was coming straight toward
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 the brushy-fringed spring where they lay. Deveril was now on his left elbow, his body raised slightly, his legs drawn up under him, so that he could readily fling himself to his feet, his oak club in his right hand. Lynette understood and was ready, too; if Shipton came dangerously near, she knew that it was Deveril's intent to drop him in his tracks. Then there would remain but the one thing to do; to leap up and run for it, run blindly, plunging into the nearest shadows, to run on and on while men shot after them.
Shipton came nearer. She felt Babe Deveril stir, ever so slightly. Her only concern now was: Would he strike just at the very second that he should? Would he strike a second too early, before it was necessary, and thus needlessly give himself away? Would he strike just a second too late, giving Shipton first the time to see and cry out?
"God, I'm stiff and sore," Shipton was muttering.
His foot struck something, and he reached down, thinking it was a bit of wood. But it was a stone, dirt-covered, and he kicked at it and came on. Now he was not two steps away. Again he stooped; as he stooped, Babe Deveril raised himself an inch or two higher. But now Shipton found a fragment of a pine log, half rotted and of little use as fuel. But in his present mood it served him; he picked it up and turned back to the dug-out. Lynette heard Deveril's slowly expelled breath.
Within there was a scraping of frying-pan on stove top. They saw a tin plate handed to Gallup on his bunk; Gallup began eating, noisy about it; eating like a dog. Shipton went in with his log. Taggart caught it from him, broke it up by striking it against the hard-packed dirt floor, and began stoking the stove. A fresh gush of sparks shot up from Joe's chimney. Shipton
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 was demanding to be fed ... and for God's sake give him a shot of coffee.
"Now's our chance," whispered Deveril. "None too good, but the best we're going to have! Ready?"
And her whisper came back to him, "Always ready!"
"Now," he whispered. "Off to the right; slow and quiet; if once we can snake across this open place and into the timber over there...."
"And now, Señor Joe," came Taggart's voice, and they knew from the sound that Taggart, mouth full, was eating ravenously, "we got you!"
"Sure you got me," Joe rasped out at him, and still there remained defiance in little Mexicali Joe. "Fine! But what you do with me? You can't eat me, an' nobody ever yet put any bounty on my hide, an' when you got me ... you no got nothin'. An', cabrone, what I got I keep him!"
Taggart laughed at him in Taggart's ugly style.
"Talk big, little hombre, while you can! And now let me tell you something: To-night, right now, inside ten minutes, you're going to tell me just exactly where you got that stuff you spilled out of your pocket last night. And in the morning, bright and early, you're going to take me there!"
"I die firs'!"
"You'll be a long time dying! Think I'm fool enough to kill you ... now? Know what the third degree is, Joe?" Taggart's voice was terrible with its insinuation. "Me, when I give the third degree to any man, he spills his guts before I'm done with him! You'll cough up everything you know and be damn glad afterward to crawl off in the woods and die! That's me, Joe."
Gallup, who must have found amusement in watching Mexicali Joe's expression, laughed. After him Cliff
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 Shipton laughed like an echo. Joe began cursing nervously.
"Ready?" whispered Lynette. Taggart's threats horrified her and set her trembling.
"No!... Don't you see? Taggart will make him tell everything he knows, if he has to knock his teeth out one by one and break every bone in his body! And I'm going to hear!... You crawl ahead while there's a chance; I can up and run for it after you if I have to."
She was silent. There was excitement in his utterance and another quality which sent a sudden chill to her heart. She stared at him through the dark as at a stranger; the gold fever was rampant in his veins, and she knew that he would lie here, never lifting hand or voice, while Taggart tortured his captive until Joe shrieked out his golden secret.
Before Lynette could speak or move, Taggart's voice once more cut harshly through the silence.
"You wouldn't know, Joe, unless you'd been sheriff as long as me, how many nice little ways there are of making a man hurry up about spitting up all he knows!" Taggart was steadily cramming into his mouth the half-cooked dried beef stew, appearing to have entirely forgotten his dislike for garlic. "Me, I'm a man of brains and what you call invention; I look around and see what I've got handy, and out of it I make what I need! Now, look here. You see us boys eating hearty, and, if I know what that look means in a man's eye, you got an appetite yourself? Well, you don't get a scrap to eat nor a drink to drink until you open up."
Joe sought to laugh at him. Taggart, still stuffing, went on steadily:
"Next, you see the stove with its hot lids? All right, pretty quick we hold you so the palms of your hands stick to the hot lids and the skin burns off. Oh, I know
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 that don't hurt so much a man can't stand it; sure not. But it does sort to set him to thinking things over in a new fashion! And then, what next?"
"Make him eat salt," put in Shipton with a snicker. "And don't give him any water! Lots of salt does the trick, Jimmie."
Taggart, a man of no subtlety, snorted at him.
"Maybe you can tell gold when you see it, Cliff," he said briefly. "But that's all you do know.... Listen to me, Mexico. We got our rifles, ain't we? We stand you with your back to the wall and dare you to move! Then we practise shooting; just to see how close we can come! We don't hit you, us three being good shots. Anyway, we don't hit you often, and then it's only grazes! We make a game out of it; every man takes a shot and him that comes closest gets a dollar every time; him that draws blood puts up two dollars in the pot. And, pretty soon.... What are you looking so sick for, Joe? Nobody ain't hurt you yet!"
Joe's curses were suddenly faint, for Joe's mouth and throat were dry and he had grown limp and dizzy and sick.
"You see, I got you, Joe. Got you dead to rights!"
"The brute!" whispered Lynette, her own flesh set twitching. "The horrible brute!"
"Sh! Just listen!"
"I don't believe he'd actually do that! He is just frightening Joe—bluffing...."
"You the sheriff!" cried Joe, desperate. "You the one bigges' robber in all these mount'!"
"Call me robber, will you, you skunk!"
Again they heard the sound of the blow, struck fiercely by Jim Taggart, who, as he let all men understand, was the last man to brook an insult. And they heard Joe's slight body hurled back, so that he toppled and fell. And, thereafter, Taggart's brutish laughter. To-night,
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 Jim Taggart, no matter how disgruntled he had been during so many hours, was at last enjoying himself. For to-night he was secure in his expectations.
"You bleed awful easy, Joe," he jeered. "Ought to go get your teeth straightened up, too! Cup of coffee? No? Then I'll take one; gracias, mi amigo!"
"I hope you burn in hell!" screamed Joe.
"So?" And Taggart, swinging heavily, knocked him down again, and then reached out for the can that held sugar and sweetened his coffee. Shipton sniggered.
"You're a corker, Jim!" he declared.
"Me," acknowledged Taggart heavily, "I am what I am. But I never laid down for a Mex breed yet, and I ain't going to."
Joe lay where he had fallen. His body was pain-wracked, for when Jim Taggart struck in wrath he struck mightily, being a mighty man physically, and hard. Joe's swart skin had paled; his eyes started from his head; he feared, and not without reason, that a third blow like that would kill him. And he knew that Jim Taggart was no man to lie awake because he had killed another man.
"I got thirs'," said Joe thickly. He was sitting up, on the floor. "Give me cup water!"
"What did I tell you, Joe?" Taggart grinned at him. "I got you. Got you right."
"I burnin' up," said Joe weakly. "Maybe you killin' me. Give me drink water."
"I got you, Joe," said Taggart speculatively. No mockery now; just a vast, deep satisfaction. "I half believe one good kick in the belly would settle you and you'd tell all you know. I got a hunch...."
"Go slow, Jim." This from the avaricious Young Gallup. "No sense killing him, seeing you haven't found out a thing."
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"You're right, Gal. Well, give him a drink, then; half a cup of water and let him think things over.... If he opens up then, O. K. If he don't we'll find the way to open him up."
"Let me go to the spring," said Joe. By now he............