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SEVENTHEDITION

Database System Concepts

Abraham Silberschatz

Henry F. Korth

S. Sudarshan

silberschatz6e_fm_i-ii.indd Page i 12/3/09 2:51:50 PM user

/Users/user/Desktop/Temp
Work/00November_2009/24:11:09/VYN/silberschatz DATABASE

SYSTEM CONCEPTS

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Abraham Silberschatz

Yale University

Henry F. Korth

Lehigh University

S. Sudarshan

Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

TM

DATABASE SYSTEM CONCEPTS, SEVENTH EDITION

Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY

10121. Copyright © 2020 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights
reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions ©
2011, 2006, and 2002. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database
or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill
Education, including, but not limited to, in any network or other
electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.

Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not

be available to customers outside the United States.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 LCR 21 20 19

ISBN 978-0-07-802215-9 (bound edition)

MHID 0-07-802215-0 (bound edition)

ISBN 978-1-260-51504-6 (loose-leaf edition)

MHID 1-260-51504-4 (loose-leaf edition)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Silberschatz, Abraham, author. | Korth, Henry F., author. |

Sudarshan, S., author.

Title: Database system concepts/Abraham Silberschatz, Yale

University, Henry F. Korth, Lehigh University, S. Sudarshan, Indian
Institute of Technology, Bombay.
Description: Seventh edition. | New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, [2020] |
Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018060474 | ISBN 9780078022159 (alk. paper) |

ISBN 0078022150 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Database
management.

Classification: LCC QA76.9.D3 S5637 2020 | DDC 005.74—dc23 LC

record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018060474

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mheducation.com/highered

To meine schatzi, Valerie

her parents and my dear friends, Steve and Mary Anne

and in memory of my parents, Joseph and Vera

Avi Silberschatz

To my wife, Joan

my children, Abigail and Joseph

my mother, Frances

and in memory of my father, Henry

Hank Korth

To my wife, Sita
my children, Madhur and Advaith

and my mother, Indira

S. Sudarshan

About the Authors

Abraham (Avi) Silberschatz is the Sidney J. Weinberg Professor of

Computer Science at Yale University. Prior to coming to Yale in 2003,
he was the vice president of the Information Sciences Research
Center at Bell Labs. He previously held an endowed professorship at
the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught until 1993.
Silberschatz is a fellow of the ACM, a fellow of the IEEE, and a
member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. He
received the 2002 IEEE Taylor L. Booth Education Award, the 1998
ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award, and the 1997
ACM SIGMOD Contribution Award. Silberschatz was awarded the Bell
Laboratories President’s Award three times, in 1998, 1999 and 2004.
His writings have appeared in numerous journals, conferences,
workshops, and book chapters. He has obtained over 48 patents and
over 24 grants. He is an author of the textbook Operating System
Concepts.

Henry F. (Hank) Korth is a Professor of Computer Science and

Engineering and co-director of the Computer Science and Business
program at Lehigh University. Prior to joining Lehigh, he was director
of Database Principles Research at Bell Labs, a vice president of
Panasonic Technologies, an associate professor at the University of
Texas at Austin, and a research staff member at IBM Research. Korth
is a fellow of the ACM

and of the IEEE and a winner of the 10-Year Award at the VLDB
Conference. His numerous research publications span a wide range of
aspects of database systems, including transaction management in
parallel and distributed systems, real-time systems, query processing,
and the influence on these areas from modern computing
architectures.

Most recently, his research has addressed issues in the application of

blockchains in enterprise databases.

S. Sudarshan is currently the Subrao M. Nilekani Chair Professor at

the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He received his Ph.D. at
the University of Wisconsin in 1992, and he was a member of the
technical staff at Bell Labs before joining IIT Bombay. Sudarshan is a
fellow of the ACM. His research spans several areas of database
systems, with a focus on query processing and query optimization.
His paper on keyword search in databases published in 2002 won the
IEEE ICDE Most Influential Paper Award in 2012, and his work on
main-memory databases received the Bell Laboratories President’s
Award in 1999. His current research areas include testing and grading
of SQL queries, optimization of database applications by rewriting of
imperative code, and query optimization for parallel databases. He
has published over 100 papers and obtained 15 patents.

Contents

Chapter 1

Introduction
1.1 Database-System Applications

1.7 Database and Application Architecture

21

1.2 Purpose of Database Systems

1.8 Database Users and Administrators

24

1.3 View of Data

1.9 History of Database Systems

25

1.4 Database Languages

13

1.10 Summary

29

1.5 Database Design

17

Exercises

31
1.6 Database Engine

18

Further Reading

33

PART ONE

RELATIONAL LANGUAGES

Chapter 2

Introduction to the Relational Model

2.1 Structure of Relational Databases

37

2.6 The Relational Algebra

48

2.2 Database Schema

41

2.7 Summary

58

2.3 Keys

43

Exercises

60
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2.4 Schema Diagrams

46

Further Reading

63

2.5 Relational Query Languages

47

Chapter 3

Introduction to SQL

3.1 Overview of the SQL Query Language

65

3.7 Aggregate Functions

91

3.2 SQL Data Definition

66

3.8 Nested Subqueries

98

3.3 Basic Structure of SQL Queries

71

3.9 Modification of the Database

108
3.4 Additional Basic Operations

79

3.10 Summary

114

3.5 Set Operations

85

Exercises

115

3.6 Null Values

89

Further Reading

124

vii

viii

Contents

Chapter 4

Intermediate SQL

4.1 Join Expressions

125

4.6 Index Definition in SQL

164

4.2 Views

137

4.7 Authorization

165

4.3 Transactions

143

4.8 Summary

173

4.4 Integrity Constraints

145

Exercises

176

4.5 SQL Data Types and Schemas

153

Further Reading

180

Chapter 5

Advanced SQL

5.1 Accessing SQL from a Programming

5.5 Advanced Aggregation Features

219

Language

183

5.6 Summary

231

5.2 Functions and Procedures

198

Exercises

232

5.3 Triggers

206

Further Reading

238

5.4 Recursive Queries

213

PART TWO

DATABASE DESIGN

Chapter 6

Database Design Using the E-R Model

6.1 Overview of the Design Process

241

6.8 Extended E-R Features

271

6.2 The Entity-Relationship Model

244

6.9 Entity-Relationship Design Issues

279

6.3 Complex Attributes

249

6.10 Alternative Notations for Modeling

6.4 Mapping Cardinalities

252

Data

285

6.5 Primary Key

256

6.11 Other Aspects of Database Design

291

6.6 Removing Redundant Attributes in Entity

6.12 Summary

292

Sets

261

Exercises

294

6.7 Reducing E-R Diagrams to Relational

Further Reading

300

Schemas

264

Chapter 7

Relational Database Design

7.1 Features of Good Relational Designs

303

7.7 More Normal Forms

341

7.2 Decomposition Using Functional

7.8 Atomic Domains and First Normal

Dependencies
308

Form

342

7.3 Normal Forms

313

7.9 Database-Design Process

343

7.4 Functional-Dependency Theory

320

7.10 Modeling Temporal Data

347

7.5 Algorithms for Decomposition Using

7.11 Summary

351

Functional Dependencies

330

Exercises

353

7.6 Decomposition Using Multivalued

Further Reading
360

Dependencies

336

Contents

ix

PART THREE

APPLICATION DESIGN AND

DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 8

Complex Data Types

8.1 Semi-structured Data

365

8.5 Summary

394

8.2 Object Orientation

376

Exercises

397
8.3 Textual Data

382

Further Reading

401

8.4 Spatial Data

387

Chapter 9

Application Development

9.1 Application Programs and User

9.7 Application Performance

434

Interfaces

403

9.8 Application Security

437

9.2 Web Fundamentals

405

9.9 Encryption and Its Applications

447

9.3 Servlets
411

9.10 Summary

453

9.4 Alternative Server-Side Frameworks

416

Exercises

455

9.5 Client-Side Code and Web Services

421

Further Reading

462

9.6 Application Architectures

429

PART FOUR

BIG DATA ANALYTICS

Chapter 10

Big Data

10.1 Motivation

467

10.5 Streaming Data

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500

10.2 Big Data Storage Systems

472

10.6 Graph Databases

508

10.3 The MapReduce Paradigm

483

10.7 Summary

511

10.4 Beyond MapReduce: Algebraic

Exercises

513

Operations

494

Further Reading

516

Chapter 11

Data Analytics

11.1 Overview of Analytics

519
11.5 Summary

550

11.2 Data Warehousing

521

Exercises

552

11.3 Online Analytical Processing

527

Further Reading

555

11.4 Data Mining

540

Contents

PART FIVE

STORAGE MANAGEMENT AND

INDEXING

Chapter 12
Physical Storage Systems

12.1 Overview of Physical Storage Media

559

12.6 Disk-Block Access

577

12.2 Storage Interfaces

562

12.7 Summary

580

12.3 Magnetic Disks

563

Exercises

582

12.4 Flash Memory

567

Further Reading

584

12.5 RAID

570

Chapter 13
Data Storage Structures

13.1 Database Storage Architecture

587

13.7 Storage Organization in Main-Memory

13.2 File Organization

588

Databases

615

13.3 Organization of Records in Files

595

13.8 Summary

617

13.4 Data-Dictionary Storage

602

Exercises

619

13.5 Database Buffer

604

Further Reading

621
13.6 Column-Oriented Storage

611

Chapter 14

Indexing

14.1 Basic Concepts

623

14.8 Write-Optimized Index Structures

665

14.2 Ordered Indices

625

14.9 Bitmap Indices

670

14.3 B+-Tree Index Files

634

14.10 Indexing of Spatial and Temporal Data

672

14.4 B+-Tree Extensions

650

14.11 Summary

677
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tangle. Lynette could scarcely drag her tired body here, caught and
retarded by every twig that clutched at her clothing. For the first
time in her vigorous life she came to understand the meaning of that
ancient expression, "tired to death." She felt herself drooping into
unconsciousness almost before her body slumped down upon the
earth, thinly covered in fallen leaves.
"I am sleepy," she murmured. "Almost dead for sleep...."
"You wonderful girl...."
"Sh! I can't talk any more. I can't think; I can't move; I can scarcely
breathe. Whether they find us in the morning or not ... it doesn't
matter to me now.... You have been good to me; be good to me still.
And ... good-night, Babe Deveril ... Gentleman!"
He saw her, dimly, nestle down, cuddling her cheek against her arm,
drawing up her knees a little, snuggling into the very arms of mother
earth, like a baby finding its warm place against its mother's breast.
He sat down and slowly made himself a cigarette, and forgot for a
long time to light it, lost in his thoughts as he stared at her and
listened to her quiet breathing. He knew the moment that she went
to sleep. And in his heart of hearts he marvelled at her and called
her "a dead-game little sport." She, of a beauty which he in all of his
light adventurings found incomparable, had ventured with him, a
man unknown to her, into the depths of these solitudes and had
never, for a second, evinced the least fear of him. True, danger
drove; and yet danger always lay in the hands of a man, her sex's
truest friend and greatest foe. In his hands reposed her security and
her undoing. And yet, knowing all this, as she must, she lay down
and sighed and went to sleep. And her last word, ingenuous and yet
packed to the brim with human understanding, still rang in his ears.
"It's worth it," he decided, his eyes lingering with her gracefully
abandoned figure. "The whole damn thing, and may the devil
whistle through his fingers until his fires burn cold! And she's mine,
and I'll make her mine and keep her mine until the world goes dead.
And my friend, Wilfred Deveril, if you've ever said anything in your
life, you've said it now!"
 CHAPTER VII
Glancing sunlight, striking at him through a nest of tumbled boulders
upon the ridge, woke Babe Deveril. He sat up sharply, stiff and cold
and confused, wondering briefly at finding himself here upon the
mountainside. Lynette was already sitting up, a huddling unit of
discomfort, her arms about her upgathered knees, her hair tousled,
her clothing torn, her eyes showing him that, though she had slept,
she, too, had awaked shivering and unrested. And yet, as he
gathered his wits, she was striving to smile.
"Good morning to you, my friend."
He got stiffly to his feet, stretching his arms up high above his head.
"At least, we're alive yet. That's something, Lynette."
"It's everything!" Emulating him she sprang up, scornfully
disregarding cramped body, her triumphant youth ignoring those
little pains which shot through her as pricking reminders of last
night's endeavors. "To live, to breathe, to be alive ... it's everything!"
"When one thinks back upon the possibilities of last night," he
answered, "the reply is 'Yes.' Good morning, and here's hoping that
you had no end of sweet dreams."
She looked at him curiously.
"I did dream," she said. "Did you?"
"No. When I slept, I slept hard. And your dreams?"
"Were all of two men. Of you and another man, Timber-Wolf, you
call him—Bruce Standing. I heard him call you 'Baby Devil'! That got
into my dreams. I thought that we three...."
She broke off, and still her eyes, fathomless, mysterious, regarded
him strangely.
"Well?" he demanded. "We three?"
She shivered. And, knowing that he had seen, she exclaimed
quickly:
"That's because I'm cold! I'm near frozen. Can't we have a fire?"
"But the dream?" he insisted.
"Dreams are nothing by the time they're told," she answered swiftly.
"So why tell them? And the fire?"
"No," he told her, suddenly stubborn, and resentful that he could not
have free entrance into her sleeping-life. "We went without it when
we needed it most; now the sun's up and we don't need it; since,
above everything, there's no breakfast to cook."
"So you woke up hungry, too?"
"Hungry? I was eating my supper when first you showed upon my
horizon. And, what with looking at you or trying to look at you, I let
half of my supper go by me! I'd give a hundred dollars right this
minute for coffee and bacon and eggs!"
"You want a lot for a hundred dollars," she smiled back at him. Her
hands were already busy with her tumbled hair, for always was
Lynette purely feminine to her dainty finger-tips. "I'd give all of that
just for coffee alone."
"Come," said Deveril, "Let's go. Are you ready?"
"To move on? Somewhere, anywhere? And to search for breakfast?
Yes; in a minute."
First, she worked her way back through the brush, down into the
creek bed, and for a little while, as she bathed her face and neck
and arms, and did the most that circumstances permitted at making
her morning toilet, she was lost to his following eyes. Slowly he
rolled himself a cigarette; that, with a man, may take the place of
breakfast, serving to blunt the edge of a gnawing appetite. Long
draughts of icy cold water served her similarly. She stamped her feet
and swung her arms and twisted her body back and forth, striving to
drive the cold out and get her blood to leaping warmly. Then, before
coming back to him, she stood for a long time looking about her.
All the wilderness world was waking; she saw the scampering flash
of a rabbit; the little fellow came to a dead halt in a grassy open
space, and sat up with drooping forepaws and erect ears; she could
fancy his twitching nose as he investigated the morning air to inform
himself as to what scents, pleasurable, friendly, inimical, lay upon it.
"In case he is hungry, after nibbling about half the night," she
mused, "he knows just where to go for his breakfast."
The rabbit flapped his long ears and went about his business,
whatever it may have been, popping into the thicket. There grew in
a pretty grove both willows and wild cherry; beyond them a tall
scattering of cottonwoods; on the rising slope scrub-pines and
juniper. And while she stood there, looking down, she heard some
quail calling, and saw half a dozen sparrows busily beginning office
hours, as it were, going about their day's affairs. And one and all of
these little fellows knew just what he was about, and where to turn
to a satisfying menu. When, returning to Deveril, she confided in him
something of her findings, which would go to indicate that man was
a pretty inefficient creature when stood alongside the creatures of
the wild, Deveril retorted:
"Let them eat their fill now; before night we'll be eating them!"
"You haven't even a gun...."
"I could run a scared rabbit to death, I'm that starved! And now
suppose we get out of this."
The sun was striking at the tops of the yellow pines on the distant
ridge; the light was filtering downward; shadows were thinning
about them and even in the ravine below. Walking stiffly, until their
bodies gradually grew warm with the exertion, and always keeping
to the thickest clump of trees or tallest patch of brush, they began to
work their way down into the cañon. The sun ran them a race, but
theirs was the victory; it was still half night in the great cleft among
the mountains when they slid down the last few feet and found
more level land underfoot, and the greensward of the wild-grass
meadow fringing the lower stream. The cañon creek went slithering
by them, cold and glassy-clear, whitening over the riffles, falling
musically into the pools, dimpling and ever ready to break into
widening circles, a smiling, happy stream. And in it, they knew, were
trout. They stood for a moment, catching breath after the steep
descent, looking into it.
"I wonder if you have a pin," said Deveril.
She pondered the matter, struck immediately by the aptness of the
suggestion; he could see how she wrinkled her brows as she tried to
remember if possibly she had made use of a pin in getting dressed
the last time.
"I've a hairpin or two left. I wonder if we could make that do?"
"Just watch and see!" he exclaimed joyously.
In putting her tumbled hair straight just now she had discovered two
pins, which, even when her hair had come down about her
shoulders, had happened to catch in a little snarl in the thick tresses;
these she had saved and used in making her morning toilet. Now
she took her hair down again and presented him with the two pins,
gathering her hair up in two thick, loose braids, while with curious
eyes he watched her; and as curiously, the thing done, she watched
him busy himself with the pins.
A few paces farther on, creeping forward under the willow branches,
they came to a spot where the creek banks were clear of brush
along a narrow grassy strip, which, however, was screened from the
mountainside by a growth of taller trees. Here Deveril went to work
on his improvised fish-hook. One hairpin he put carefully into his
pocket; the other he bent rudely into the required shape, making an
eye in one end by looping and twisting. The other end, that intended
for the hungry mouth of a greedy trout, he regarded long and
without enthusiasm.
"Too blunt, to begin with; next, no barb, too smooth; and, finally,
the thing bends too easily. Hairpins should be made of steel!"
But at least two of the defects could be simply remedied up to a
certain though not entirely satisfactory point. He squatted down and,
employing two hard stones, hammered gently at the malleable wire
until he flattened out the end of it into a thin blade with sharp,
jagged edges. Then, using his pocket-knife, he managed to cut
several little slots in this thin blade, so that there resulted a series of
roughnesses which were not unlike barbs; whereas he could put no
great faith in any one of them holding very securely, at least, taken
all together, they would tend toward keeping his hook, if once taken,
from slipping out so smoothly. He re-bent his pin and suddenly
looked up at her with a flashing grin.
He robbed one of his boots of its string; he cut the first likely willow
wand. Without stirring from his spot he dug in the moist earth and
got his worm. And then, motioning her to be very still, he crept a
few feet farther along the brook, found a pool which pleased him,
hid behind a clump of bushes and gently lowered his baited hook
toward the shadowy surface. And before the worm touched the
water, a big trout saw and leaped and struck ... and did a clean job
of snatching the worm off without having appeared to so much as
touch the bent hairpin!
Three quiet sounds came simultaneously: the splash of the falling
fish, a grunt from Deveril, a gasp from Lynette. Deveril, thinking she
was about to speak, glared at her in savage admonition for silence;
she understood and remained motionless. Slowly he crept back to
the spot where he had dug his worm, and scratched about until he
had two more. One of them went promptly to his hook, while he
held the other in reserve. Again he approached his pool, again he
lowered his bait about the bush. This time the offering barely
touched the water before the trout struck again. Now Deveril was
ready for him, deftly manœuvring his pole; his string tautened, his
wallow bent, the fat, glistening trout swung above the racing
water.... Lynette was already wondering how they were going to
cook it!... There was again a splash, and Deveril stood staring at a
silly-looking hairpin, dangling at the end of an absurd boot-lace. For
now the hairpin failed to present the vaguest resemblance to any
kind of a hook; the trout's weight had been more than sufficient to
straighten it out so that the fish slipped off.
Gradually, moving on noiseless feet, the girl withdrew; her last
glimpse of Deveril, before she slipped out of sight among the
willows, showed her his face, grim in its set purpose. He was trying
the third time, and she believed that he would stand there without
moving all day long, if necessary. In the meantime she was done
with inactivity and watching; doing nothing when there was much to
be done irked her.
Withdrawn far enough to make her certain that no chance sound
made by her would disturb his trout, she went on through the grove
and across little grassy open spaces flooring the cañon, making her
way further up-stream. When a hundred yards above him, she
turned about a tangled thicket and came upon the creek where it
flashed through shallows. All of her life she had lived in the
mountains; as a little girl, many a day had she followed a stream like
this, bickering away down the most tempting of wild places; and
more than once, lying by a tiny clear pool, had she caught in her
hands one of the quick fishes, just to set him in a little lakelet of her
own construction, where she played with him before letting him go
again. To-day ... if she could catch her fish first! While Deveril, man-
like, taking all such responsibilities upon his own shoulders, cursed
silently and achieved nothing beyond loss of bait and loss of temper!
Up-stream, always keeping close to the merrily musical water, she
made her slow way until she found a likely spot. At the base of a
tiny waterfall was a big smooth rock; the water from above, glassily
smooth in its well-worn channel, struck upon the rock and was
divided briefly into two streams. One of them, the lesser, poured
down into a small, rock-rimmed pool; the other, deflected sharply,
sped down another course, to rejoin its fellow a few feet below the
pool.
It was to the pool itself, half shut off from the main current, that
Lynette gave her quickened attention. She crept closer, noiseless,
peeping over. A sudden dark gleam, the quick, nervous steering of a
trout rewarded her. She stood still, making a profound study of what
lay before her; in what the rock-edged pool aided and wherein it
would present difficulties. Scarcely more than a trickle of water
poured out at the lower side; she could hastily pile up a few stones
there, and so construct a wall insurmountable to the trout if minded
to escape down-stream. Then she looked to the far side, where the
water slipped in. She could lay a few broken limbs across the rock
there and build up a rampart of stones and turf upon it, and so
deflect nearly all of the incoming water. Both these things done, she
could, if need be, bail the pool out, and so come with certainty upon
whatever fish had blundered into it. She began to hope that she
would find a dozen!
Twice, standing upon the glassy rocks, she slipped; once she got
soaking wet to her knee; another time she saved herself from a
thorough drenching in the ice-cold stream only at the cost of
plunging one arm down into it, elbow-deep. She shivered but kept
steadily on.
She heard a bird among the bushes and started, thinking that here
came Deveril; she fancied him with a string of fish in his hand,
laughing at her. Impulsively she called to him.
The close walls of the ravine shut in her voice; the thickets muffled
it; the splash and gurgle of the tumbling water drowned it out. She
stood very still, hushed; now suddenly the silence, the loneliness,
the bigness of the wilderness closed in about her. She looked about
fearfully, half expecting to see men spring out from behind every
boulder or tree trunk. She longed suddenly to see Babe Deveril
coming up along the creek to her. She was tempted to break into a
run racing back to him.
She caught herself up short. All this was only a foolish flurry in her
breast, conjured up by that sudden realization of loneliness when
her quickened voice died away into the whispered hush of the still
solitudes. For an instant that feeling of being alone had overpowered
her, or threatened to do so; then her only thought had been of Babe
Deveril; she could have rushed fairly into his arms, so did her
emotions drive her. Now she found time to puzzle over herself; it
struck her now, for the first time, how she had fled unquestioningly
into this wilderness with a man. A man whom she did not even
know. That hasty headlong act of hers would seem to indicate a
trust of a sort. But did she actually trust Babe Deveril, with those
keen, cutting eyes of his and the way he had of looking at a girl, and
the whole of his reckless and dare-devil personality? Lynette Brooke
had not lived in a cave all of her brief span of life; nor had she
grown into slim girlhood and the full bud of her glorious youth
without more than one look into a mirror. Vapidly vain she was not;
but clear-visioned she was, and she knew and was glad for the vital,
vivid beauty which was hers and thanked God for it. And she
glimpsed, if somewhat vaguely, that to a man like Babe Deveril,
taking life lightly, there was no lure beyond that of red lips and
sparkling eyes. How far could she be sure of him? She went back
with slow steps to her trout; she was glad that Babe Deveril had not
heard and come running to her just then. But when Deveril did
come, carrying two gleaming trout, she masked her misgivings and
lifted a laughing face toward his triumphant one.
"We eat, Lynette!" he announced gaily.
Suddenly his eyes warmed to the picture she made, paying swift
tribute to the tousled, flushed beauty of her. His glance left her face
and ran swiftly down her form; she felt suddenly as though her wet
clothing were plastered tight to her.
"You can finish this," she told him swiftly, "if you want to take any
more fish."
"But, look here! Where are you going? Breakfast...."
Her teeth were beginning to chatter.
"I'm going to try to get dry. You can start breakfast or...."
She fled, and called herself a fool for growing scarlet, as she knew
that she did; as though two burning rays had been directed full upon
her back, she could feel his look as she ran from him; she could not
quickly enough vanish from his keen eyes, beyond the thicket. And
how on earth she was going to get dry again until the sun stood
high in the sky, she did not in the least know. She could wring out
the free water; she could make flails of her arms and run up and
down until she got warm.... If only she had a fire; but that would be
foolhardy, the smoke arising to stand a signal for miles of their
whereabouts....
And until this moment she had not thought of how they were to
convert freshly caught fish into an edible breakfast! How, without
fire? She began to shiver again, from head to foot now, and,
confronted by her own problem, that of getting warm and dry, she
was content to leave all other solutions to Deveril.
When half an hour later she returned to him, she found him smoking
a cigarette and crouching over a bed of dying coals, whereon certain
tempting morsels lay; Deveril was turning them this way and that;
with the savory odor of the grilling fish there arose from the embers
a whiff of the green sage-leaves which he had plucked at the slope
of the cañon and laid first on his bed of coals. Crisp mountain-trout,
garnished with sage! And plenty of clear, cold, sparkling water to
drink thereafter! Truly a morning repast for king and queen.
"I hope they keep us on the run for a month!" Deveril greeted her. "I
haven't had this much fun for a dozen years!"
"But your fire?" she asked anxiously. "Aren't you afraid? The
smoke?"
"Where there's smoke, there's always fire," he told her lightly. "But
when a man's on the dodge, as we are, he can have a fire that gives
out almighty little smoke! It's all bone-dry wood, with only the
handful of sage and a few crisscross willow sticks. Look up, and see
how much smoke you can see!"
He had built his small blaze, ringed about by some rocks, in the
heart of a small grove of trees which stood forty or fifty feet high; he
had got his fire burning with strong, clean flames, from a handful of
dry leaves and twigs; Lynette, looking up, could make out only the
faintest bluish-gray wisp of smoke against the gray-green of the
leaves. She understood; always it was inevitable that they must
accept whatever chances the moment brought them, yet it was not
at all likely that their faint plume of smoke, vanishing among the
treetops, would ever draw the glance of any human eye other than
their own.
"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...."
"No telling how long he had to lie still while the pack yelped about
his hiding-place; that he came this way means only one thing. And
that is that our luck is with us, and we're headed as straight as he is
toward his prospect hole. Ready? Let's follow him!"
She jumped up. But before they started they gathered up, to the last
small bit, what was left of their fish; Deveril made the small bundle,
fish enwrapped in leaves, with a handkerchief about the whole.
"If he should hear us?" she whispered. "If he should lie in waiting
and see us?"
He chuckled.
"In any case, we'll have it on him! He can't know that we're on the
run, too; he got away too fast for that. And even if he should know,
what would he do about it? He has no love for Taggart, anyway; and
he has no wish to get himself into the hands of that mob that he has
just ducked away from, like a rabbit dodging a pack of hounds. If he
catches us ... why, then, we catch him at the same time! Come on."
Thus began the second lap of their journey; thus they, fleeing,
followed like shadows upon the traces of one who fled. For Mexicali
Joe would obviously keep to the bed of the cañon; if he forsook it in
order to climb up either slope to a ridge above, he must of necessity
pass through the more sparsely timbered spaces, where he would
run constantly into danger of being seen. The only danger to their
plans lay with the possibility that he might overhear sounds of their
following and might draw a little to one side and hide in some dense
copse, and so let them go by. But they had the advantage from the
beginning; they knew he was ahead, and he did not know that they
followed; so long as they, listening always, did not hear him ahead,
there was little danger of him hearing them coming after him. With
all the noise of the water, tumbling over falls and splashing along
over rocks, singing cheerily to itself at every step, there was small
likelihood of any one of the three cautious footfalls being heard....
There were the times, so intent were they following the Mexican,
when they forgot what was after all the main issue; forgot that they,
too, were followed. For the newer phase of the game was more
zestful just now than the other; they had neither glimpsed nor heard
anything since the passing of the two riders last night to hint that
any danger of discovery threatened them. They spoke seldom, only
now and then, pausing briefly, in lowered voices, as the speculations
which had been occupying both minds, demanded expression. Thus
they were always confronted by some new problem; at first, and for
a mile or more, they had full confidence that they had Joe straight
ahead of them. But presently they approached a fork of the cañon; it
became imperative to know if Joe had gone up the right or the left
ravine. And here, where most they wanted a glimpse of him, they
had scant hope of seeing him, so dense was the timber growth; he
would keep close to the bed of the stream, at times walking in the
water so that the network of branches from the brushy tangle on
both banks would make for him a dim alleyway, like a tunnel. They
could not hope to hear him; they could not count on finding his
tracks, since none would be left upon the rocks and the rushing
water held none.
But they were alert, ears critical of the slightest rustling, eyes never
keener. And, their good fortune holding firm, when they came to the
forking of the ways, that which they had not hoped for, a track upon
a hard rock, set them right. For here Joe, but a few score yards
ahead of them, had slipped, and had crawled up over a boulder, and
there was still the wet trace of his passing, a sign to vanish, drying,
while they looked on it. Joe had gone on into the deeper cañon,
headed in the direction which last night they had elected for their
own, driving on toward the heart of the wilderness country.
They were no less relieved at finding what was the man's likely
general direction than at making sure that they were still almost at
his heels. For they had come to realize that, to explain Joe's
presence here, there were two directly opposing possibilities to
consider: It was imaginable that Joe would be making straight for
his gold; and it was just as reasonable that his craft might have
suggested to him to head in an opposite direction. Now that they
might follow him and still be going direct upon their own business,
they were for the moment content upon all points.
Deveril, for the most part, went ahead; now and then he paused a
moment for the girl to come up with him. But never did he have to
wait long. He began to wonder at her; they had covered many hard
miles last night; more hard miles this morning. How long, he asked
himself, as his eyes sought to read hers, could such a slender,
altogether feminine, blush-pink girl stand up under such relentless
hardship as this flight promised to give them? And always he went
on again, reassured and admiring; her eyes remained clear, her
regard straight and cool. A girl unafraid; the true daughter of
dauntless, hot-blooded parents.
And she, watching his tall, always graceful form leading the way,
found ample time to wonder about him. She had seen him last night
burst in through a window and take the time coolly, though already
the hue and cry was breaking at his contemptuous heels, to rifle a
man's pockets. There was an indelible picture: the debonair Babe
Deveril, who had stepped unquestioningly into her fight, going down
on his knees before his fallen kinsman ... calmly bent upon robbery.
For she had seen the bank-notes in his hand.
The sun rose high and crested all the ridges with glorious light, and
poured its golden warmth down into the steep cañons. But, now that
shadows began to shrink and the little open spaces lay revealed in
detail, fresh labor was added in that they were steadily harder driven
to keep to cover; all day long, at intervals, they were to have
glimpses of the Buck Valley road, high above upon the mountain
flank, and at each view of the road they understood that a man up
there might have caught a glimpse of them. Ten o'clock came and
found them doggedly following along the way which they held the
viewless Mexicali Joe must have taken before them. They paused
and stooped to the invitation of the creek, and thereafter ate what
was left them of their grilled trout. Having eaten, they drank again;
and having drunk, they again took up the trail....
"If you can stand the pace?" queried Deveril over his shoulder. And
she read in the gleam in his eyes that he was set on seeing this
thing through; on sticking close to Mexicali Joe until he came, with
Joe, upon his secret.
"Why, of course!" she told him lightly, though already her body
ached.
It was not over an hour later when they set their feet in a trail which
they were confident Mexicali Joe had followed; from the moment
they stepped into the trail they watched for some trace of him, but
the hard, rain-washed, rocky way which only a mountaineer could
have recognized as a trail, was such as to hold scant sign, if the one
who travelled it but exercised precaution. Babe Deveril, with his
small knowledge of these mountains, held it the old short-cut trail
from Timkin's Bar, long disused, since Timkin's Bar itself had a score
of years ago died the death of short-lived mining towns. Brush grew
over it, and again and again it vanished underfoot, and they were
hard beset to grope forward to it again. Yet trail of a sort it was, and
it set them to meditating: Timkin's Bar, in the late '80's, had created
a gold furor, and then, after its short and hectic life, had been
abandoned, as an orange, sucked dry by a child, is thrown aside.
Was it possible that among the old diggings Mexicali Joe had
stumbled upon a vein which the old-timers had overlooked?
At any rate, the trail lured them along, winding in their own general
direction; and Mexicali Joe still fled ahead. Of this latter fact they
had evidence when they came to the unmistakable sign ... to
watchful eyes ... of his recent passing: here, on the steep, ill-defined
trail he had slipped, and had caught at the branches of a wild cherry.
They saw the furrow made by his boot-heel and the scattered leaves
and broken twigs.
Gradually the trail led them up out of the cañon-bed, snaking along
the flank of the mountain. And gradually they were entering the
great forest land of yellow pines. If not already in Timber-Wolf's
country, here was the border-line of his monster holdings: few men
could draw the line exactly between the wide-reaching acres which
were his and those contiguous acres which were a portion of the
government reserve. Standing himself had quarrelled with the
government upon the matter and what was more, after no end of
litigation, had won a point or two.
Once they diverged from the trail to climb and slide to the bottom of
the cañon for a long drink. But this and the sheer ascent took them
in their hurry only a few minutes. Again they took up the trail. It was
high noon and they were tired. But, alike disdainful of fatigue, driven
and lured, they pressed on.
Suddenly she startled him by catching him by the arm and
whispering warningly:
"Sh! Some one is following us!"
In another moment, drawing back from the trail, they were hidden
among the wild cherries in a little side ravine.
"Where?" he demanded, his voice hushed like hers, as he peered
back along the way they had come. "Who? How many of them?"
"I didn't see," she answered.
"What did you hear?"
"Nothing ... I just know ... I felt that some one was trailing us just as
we are trailing Mexicali Joe! I feel it now; I know!"
"But you had something—something that you saw or heard—to tell
you?"
She shook her head. And he saw, wondering at her, that she was
very deeply in earnest as she admitted:
"No. Nothing! But I know. I tell you, I know. Can't you feel that
there is some one back there, following us, spying on us, hiding and
yet dogging every step we take? Can't you feel it?"
She saw him shaken with silent laughter. She understood that he, a
man, was convulsed with laughter at the imaginings of her, a maid.
And yet, also, since she was quick-minded, she noted how his
laughter was silent! He meant her to see that he put no credence in
her suspicions; and yet, for all that, he was impressed, and he did
take care that no one, who might follow them, should overhear him!
"One doesn't feel things like that," he told her, as though positive.
But in the telling he kept his voice low, so that it was scarcely louder
than her own whisper.
"One does," she retorted. "And you know it, Babe Deveril!"
"But," he challenged her, "were you right, and were there a man or
several men back there tracking us, why all this caution on their
parts? What would they be waiting for, being armed themselves and
knowing us unarmed? What better place than this to take us in?
Why give us a minute's chance to slip away in the brush?"
"I don't know." She shrugged, and again he marvelled at her; she
looked like one who had little vital concern in what any others,
pursuing, might or might not do.
Despite his cool determination to adhere to calm reason and to
discount feminine impressionism, which he held to be fostered by a
nervous condition brought about by overexertion, Babe Deveril
began to feel, as she felt, that there was something more than
imagination in her contention. How does a man sense things which
no one of his five senses can explain to him? He could not see any
reason in this abrupt change in both their moods; and yet, none the
less, it seemed to him, all of a sudden, as though eyes were spying
on him from behind every pine trunk, and from the screen of every
thicket.
"Joe won't escape us in a hurry," he muttered. "Not in this cañon.
And we'll see this thing through. Let's sit tight and watch."
And so, with that inexplicable sense that here in the wilderness they
were not yet free from pursuit, they crouched in the bushes and
bent every force of every sense to detect their fancied pursuers. But
the forest land, sun-smitten, a playland of light and shadow and
tremulous breeze, lay steeped in quiet about them, and they saw
nothing moving save the gently stirring leaves and occasional birds;
half a dozen sparrows briefly stayed their flight upon a shrub in
flower with pale-pink blossoms; a bevy of quail, forty strong,
marched away through the narrow roadways under the low,
drooping branches, with crested topknots bobbing; the forest land
murmured and whispered and sang softly, and seemed empty of any
other human presence than their own. And yet they waited, and at
the end of their waiting, grown nervous despite themselves, though
they had had no slightest evidence that pursuit was drawing close
upon their heels, they were not able to shake from them that feeling
that danger, the danger from which they fled, was become a near-
drawn menace. And all the more to be feared in that it approached
so silently, covertly, hidden and ready to strike when their guard was
down.
"Just the same," said Deveril, deep in his own musings, "it can't be
Jim Taggart, for that's not Taggart's way, having the goods on a
man, and, besides, I fancy I put him out of the running." Then he
looked at her curiously, and added: "And it can't be Bruce Standing,
since you put him down and out and...."
It was the first time that such a reference to the past had been
made. Now she startled him by the quick vehemence of her denial,
saying:
"I didn't shoot Bruce Standing! I tell you...."
He looked at her steadily, and she broke off, as she saw dawning in
his eyes a look which was to be read as readily as were white stones
to be glimpsed in the bottom of a clear pool. She had made her
statement, and, whether true or false, he held it to be a lie.
"In case they should somehow lay us by the heels," he said dryly,
"you would come a lot closer to clearing yourself by saying that you
shot him in self-defense than in denying everything. But they haven't
got their ropes over our running horns yet!... Do you still feel that
we are followed?"
His look angered her; his words angered her still further. So to his
question she made no reply. He looked at her again curiously. She
refused to meet his eyes, coolly ignoring him. A little smile twitched
at his lips.
"It's a poor time for good friends to fall out," he said lightly. "I don't
care the snap of my fingers who shot him, or why. He ought to have
been shot a dozen years ago. And now I'll tell you what, I think,
explains this business of some one being close behind us, if you are
right in it. The big chance is that some one has been trailing Mexicali
Joe all along; and dropped in behind us when we dropped in behind
Joe. We've been doing a first-class job of sticking to cover; mind
you, we haven't caught a second glimpse of Joe all this time, and
therefore it is as likely as not that the gent whom you feel to be
trailing us hasn't caught a glimpse of us. If this is right, we've got a
bully chance right now to prove it. We lie close where we are for ten
minutes, and see if your hombre doesn't slip on by us, nosing along
after Joe."
In silence she acquiesced. That sense of the nearness of another
unseen human being was insistent upon her. For a long time, as still
as the deep-rooted trees about them, they crouched, listening,
watching. She heard the watch ticking in Babe Deveril's pocket. She
heard her own breathing and his. She heard the brownie birds
threshing among dead leaves. Then there was the eternal
whispering of the pines and the faint murmurings from the stream
far down in the cañon. At last it would have been a relief to straining
nerves if a man, or two or three men, had stepped into sight in the
trail from which she and Deveril had withdrawn. For more certain
than ever was Lynette Brooke, though she could give neither rhyme
nor reason for that certainty, that her instincts had not tricked her.
Therefore, instead of being reassured at seeing or hearing no one,
she was depressed and made anxious; the silence became sinister,
filled with vague threat; that she saw no one was explicable to her
by but the one ominous condition: that person or those persons
were watching even now, and knew where she and Babe Deveril hid,
and did not mean to stir until first their quarry stirred. Why all this
caution? She could not explain that to herself; if some one followed,
why should that some one hide? Why not step out with gun levelled,
and put an end to this grim game of hide-and-seek.
"You see," whispered Deveril, "there is no one behind us."
They had not moved for a full twenty minutes, and by now he began
to convict her of nervous imaginings, fancies of an overwrought girl.
But she answered him, saying with unshaken certainty:
"I tell you, I know! Some one has been following us, and now is
hiding and waiting for us to go on."
"Well, you are right or wrong, and in either case I don't fancy this
job of sitting so tight I feel as though I were growing roots. If you
should happen to be right, we'll know in time, I suppose. Let's go!"
To her, in her present mood, anything was better than inaction. They
left their hiding-place, found a silent and hidden way a bit farther
down the slope, went forward a hundred yards and stepped back
into the faint trail. Their concern, each said inwardly, was to forge on
and to follow Joe; thus they pretended within themselves to ignore
that nebulous warning that they, like Joe, were followed.
And so the day wore on, a day made up of uncertainty and vague
threat. How full the silent forest lands were of little sounds! For
therein lies the greatest of all forest-land mysteries; that silence in
the solitudes may be made audible. Uncertainty struck the key-note
of their long day. They sought to follow Mexicali Joe; they did not
see him, they did not hear him, they did not know where he was.
Was he still ahead of them, hastening on? How far ahead? A mile by
now, not having paused while they lost time? A hundred yards? Or
had he turned aside? Or had he thrown himself down flat
somewhere, watching them go by? Was he following them, or had
he struck out east or west, while they went on north? And was there
some one following them? One man? Two? More? Or none at all?
Uncertainty. And as they grew tired and hungry, the great silence
oppressed them, and most of all this uncertainty of all things began
to bite in upon their nerves as acid eats into glass, etching its own
sign.
"I'm getting jumpy," muttered Deveril, glaring at her, his eyes
looking savage and stern. "This nonsense of yours...."
"It's not nonsense!"
"Anyway, it's getting on my nerves! There's no sense in this sort of
thing. We're scaring ourselves like two kids in the dark. What's more,
we are allowing a pace-setter to get us to going too hard and steady
a clip; we'll be done in, the first thing we know. And we've got to
begin figuring on where the next meal comes from. What I mean is,
that we've got enough to do without wasting any more nerve force
on what may or may not follow after us."
"Joe is still ahead of us," she reminded him; "or, at any rate, we
think that he is. He left last night in as big a hurry as we did; and
he, too, came away without gun and fishing-tackle, and didn't stop
to get Young Gallup to put him up a lunch. Then, on top of all that,
Joe knows this country better than we do."
"I get you!" he told her quickly. "Joe's as ready for food and lodging
as we are, and Joe, unless we're wrong all along, is hiking ahead of
us. Who knows but we'll invite ourselves to dine with Señor Joe
before the day's done!... Is that it?"
"I don't know how it may work out.... I hadn't gotten that far yet....
But if Joe is headed toward his secret, and if he does have a
provision cache somewhere in the mountains ... a few items in
tinned goods and, maybe, even coffee and sugar and canned
milk...."
"Let's go!" broke in Deveril, half in laughter and half in eagerness.
"You make my mouth water with your surmisings."
Here in these steep-walled narrow gorges the shadows lengthened
swiftly after the sun had passed the zenith, and already, when now
and then they looked searchingly at what lay ahead, it was difficult
to distinguish the shadows from the substance. They must come
close to Joe if they meant to see him, and, by the same token, if a
man followed them, he was confronted by the same difficulty. So
they hurried on, walking more freely, keeping in the trail, climbing at
times along the ridge flank, frequently dipping down into the lower
cañon. Babe Deveril cut himself a green cudgel from a scrub-oak,
trimming off the twigs as he walked on. If it came to argument with
Mexicali Joe, a club like that might bring persuasion. And he fully
meant that the Mexican should show himself generous, even to the
division of a last crust. Always buoyed up by optimism, he was
counting strongly on Joe's provision cache.
When they dropped down into the cañon again, they saw the first
star. Lynette looked up at it; it trembled in its field of deep blue. She
was faint, almost dizzy; her muscles ached; fatigue bore hard upon
her spirit; she was footsore. But, most of all, like Deveril before her,
she was concerned with imaginings of supper. She pictured bacon
and a tin of tomatoes and shoe-string potatoes sizzling in the bacon
grease ... and coffee. Whether with milk or sugar, or without both,
no longer mattered. Then she sighed wearily, and had no other
physical nor mental occupation than that which had to do with the
putting of one foot before the other, plodding on and on and on. And
all the while the shadows deepened and thickened in the cañons,
and the stars multiplied, and the little evening breeze sharpened;
she began to shiver.
She could mark no trail underfoot; always Deveril, before her, was
breaking through a tangle, always at his heels, she kept his form in
sight; but she began to think that he had lost the way, and a new
fear gripped her. Instead of dining with Joe, they were losing him,
and now, with the utter dark already on the way, they would see no
sign of him. And in the dark they would not be able to snare a trout
or anything else that might be eaten. She got into the habit of
breaking off twigs and chewing at them....
And all the while Deveril was rushing on, faster and faster. It was
hard work keeping up with him.
"We've got him! Stay with it, Lynette; we've got him!"
It was Deveril's whisper, sharp and eager; there was Deveril himself
just ahead of her, pausing briefly.
"Come on. As fast and as quiet as you can."
Her heart leaped up; her life fires burned bright and warm again;
the pain went out of her. She began to run....
"Sh! Look! Off to the left in that little clearing."
On the mountain slope just ahead of them she marked the clearing
and, since there, too, the shadows were darkening, she saw nothing
else. She wondered what he saw or thought that he saw. He
pointed, and she, with straining eyes, made out a shadow which
moved; Joe, going up a steep, open trail. And just ahead of Joe a
dark, square-cornered blot....
"A house ... a cabin...."
"A dirty dugout, most likely, and from the look of it. But, as sure as
you're born, there's Mexicali Joe's mountain headquarters. A clump
of bushes, willows, you can be sure, not ten feet from his door; that
will be his spring. And inside his shack ... a box of grub, Lady
Lynette! And if Joe doesn't have company for dinner, I'll eat your
hat."
"I haven't any," said Lynette. "But we'd probably have to eat our
own shoes. Come on; let's hurry.... What are you waiting for?"
"I want to whet my appetite by loitering a while.... Listen, Lynette;
after all, there's no great hurry any longer. First thing, a hot supper
is what is needed, and Joe can make as good a fire as we can. You
can gamble that he won't waste any time, and that he'll cook a
panful!"
"He might have only one panful ... and he might start in on it
cold...."
"And if he has only that limited amount and it belongs to him and he
wants it, you don't mean to say that you would seek to take it away
from him? That's robbery...."
"We'll play square with him, Babe Deveril, and give him exactly one-
third. And man may call it robbery, but God and nature won't.
Come...."
"I'll come with you a few steps farther. And then we will possess our
souls in patience and will sit down among the bushes and will wait
until we smell coffee. And I'll tell you why."
She looked at him, wondering. And then suddenly she guessed
somewhat of his thought, though not all of it. She had forgotten her
own certainty that some one followed them; it surged back upon her
now.
"Yes," he said, when she had spoken, "you're on the right track. We
are going to wait a few minutes to make sure. If some one was
following and wanted you and me, he could have had no object in
hanging back, spying on us. But if that same gent were following
Mexicali Joe, he would want to hang back, trusting to Joe to lead
him to something worth coming at. So, out of your feeling I've built
my theory: That this gent thinks all the time he's trailing Joe, and
doesn't know we are here at all; tracks in the rocky trail wouldn't
show him whether one or a dozen had gone over it. And I get to this
point: How did this gent pick up Joe's trail in the dark? And I answer
it by saying that he could have known that Joe had a dugout up
here, and so lay in wait for him. And, that being true, by now he
would be sure that Joe was going straight to his camp, and so, at
almost any moment, he would give up his sneak-thief style of
travelling and would come hurrying along. And, if that's right, you
and I can get a glimpse of this new hombre before he does of us. It
may come in handy, you know," he concluded dryly, "to get the first
swing at him if he's an ugly gent with a rifle. At short range, and in
the dark, and stepping lively, this club of mine is way up. And, if we
can take his rifle from him ... why, then into the wilderness we go,
without fear of starving. Which is a long speech for the end of a
perfect day, but I'm right!"
So insistent was he and so utterly weary she, they drew a few
lagging steps out of the trail, and sank down in the shadows. She lay
flat; she saw the stars swimming in the deepening purple; her eyes
closed; she felt two big tears of exhaustion slip out between the
closed lids. There was a faint drumming in her ears; she no longer
cared for food.
... "Get up!" Deveril was saying curtly. "I guess we're both wrong.
And I'm going to eat, if the devil drops in to join us."
She didn't think she had been asleep. Nor yet that she had fallen
prey to swift, all-engulfing unconsciousness. Only that she had been
in a mood of utter indifference to all earthly matters. She tried, when
he commanded the second time, to rise. He helped her. She sat
up.... She saw a little sprinkling of sparks tossed upward from Joe's
chimney; stars at first she thought them—stars wavering and blurred
and uncertain.
"We've waited long enough," said Deveril.
She rose wearily, making no answer. He went ahead, she followed.
Her whole body cried out for rest; this brief, altogether too brief,
lingering had stiffened her and made her sore from head to foot.
She saw that Deveril was going up the steep trail slowly; he still
strove for caution, no doubt planning to burst in unexpectedly upon
Mexicali Joe. For Joe might have a gun there in his dugout; and he
might have no great stock of provisions and be of no mind to share
with others. So she, too, strove for silence.... A strangely familiar
odor was afloat on the night air ... coffee! Joe's coffee was boiling.
And then, at that moment of moments, jarring upon their nerves as
a sudden pistol-shot might have done, there came up to them from
the cañon they had just quitted the sharp sound made by a man
breaking in the dark through brush. And, with that sound, another; a
man's voice, a voice which both knew and yet on the instant were
unable to place, crying sharply, unguardedly:
"Come ahead, boys. There's his dugout and we got him dead to
rights!"
"Down!" whispered Deveril. "Down! There's three or four of them...."
She dropped in her tracks, he at her side. They were in the little
clearing; if they went back it would be to run into the arms of the
men down there; if they went ahead it was to go straight on to Joe's
dugout. If they sought to turn to right or left, they must go through
the longest arms of the clearing, and must certainly be seen. The
only shadows into which they might slip were cast by the clump of
willows grouped in a span of half a dozen yards, and not over as
many steps, from Joe's door....
"Into the willows!" whispered Deveril. "Quick! It's our only show."
They crawled, wriggling forward, inching, but inching swiftly. Behind
them they heard voices, and a sudden running of heavy boots;
before them they heard a pot or pan dropped against Joe's stove,
and then Joe's excited muttering and the scuffle of Joe's boots. They
scrambled on; Deveril dragged himself, with a sudden heave, into
the fringe of the willow thicket; at his side, so close that elbow
brushed elbow, Lynette threw herself. They saw Joe come running
out of his dugout; they saw him pause a second; he could have seen
them, surely, had he looked down. But his eyes were for the cañon
below, from which the sudden voices had boomed up to him. And
now came a voice again, that first voice, shouting threateningly:
"I got you covered, Joe! With my rifle. And I'll drop you dead if you
move! You know me, Joe ... me, Jim Taggart!"
Still Joe hesitated ... and was lost. Up the steep slope came Jim
Taggart, and behind him Young Gallup; and after Gallup, Gallup's
man, Cliff Shipton. And every man of them carried a rifle, held in
readiness. Joe began to swear in Spanish, his voice shaken,
quavering with the fear upon him.
Deveril put out his hand until it lay upon Lynette's arm; his fingers
gave her a quick, warning squeeze. Taggart and the others were
coming on swiftly; it was almost too much to hope that they could
pass and not see the two figures outstretched in the willows. Still,
there was the chance, slim chance as it was....
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