pausing now and then for replenishment from a solid, dark object in his hip pocket. The fifth was equipped with petticoats, rippled by the evening breeze. She was hatless and zigzagged nervously, jerking her head this way and that, with quick, curious motions. Far out on the cape they stole, and bent over to examine the yawning holes which punctured the surface around the sentinel palm.
Now, two others followed them, stealthily, from the camp. The sturdy one of medium height was Ben, she knew, the heavier, slowly moving one, the Captain.
Earlier in the evening she might have been offended with the boy, but even in this slender maiden with the spiritual eyes lurked the sleeping tigress instinct. It awoke now that she saw him walking into danger.
A gruff challenge sounded on the night air. Ben had met his enemy at last. His level, watching gaze was bent, not on MacAllister, but on the bruiser and the jaunty young man. She recoiled a little—it was the first time she had seen Phil Huntington since Spanish Dick came to the church with the message, that eventful night.
The other man must be the one who had hit Ben so foully from behind on the Salthaven sands, the time he had told her about. For his own sake, she had begged him to forget that. But she knew men—and he was most certainly a man. They were so funny, so hard to manage in some things. They always insisted on revenge, on fighting things out. It was silly. Didn't do anybody any good at all—not at all. But if he would be so crazy-headed, she must look out for him.
