"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 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.