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That surely meant the end of this long trail; the faint spots of green lent suggestion of a desert waterhole; there Mescal must be, hidden in some shady canyon. Hare built his hopes anew.
Some of his brother's old companions were at that moment drinking mescal in a saloon down the street, and they would be glad to see this Americano die. He glanced past his house at the saloon and Hopalong misconstrued his thoughts. "Shore, go home. I'll just circulate around some for exercise. No hard feelings, only yu better throw it next time," he said as he backed away and rode off.
He knew the foremost of those horsemen though he had never seen him. "Dene," whispered Mescal, and confirmed his instinctive fear. Hare was nervously alive to the handsome presence of the outlaw. Glimpses that he had caught of "bad" men returned vividly as he noted the clean-shaven face, the youthful, supple body, the cool, careless mien.
The trembling of her fingers and the heaving of her bosom lent his hope conviction. "Mescal," he went on, "these past months have been years, years of toiling, thinking, changing, but always loving. I'm not the man you knew. I'm wild I'm starved for a sight of you. I love you! Mescal, my desert flower!" She raised her free hand to his shoulder and swayed toward him.
"Now, Jack, I'm off. Good-bye and good luck. Mescal, look out for him.... So-ho! Noddle! Getup! Biscuit!" And with many a cheery word and slap he urged the burros into the forest, where they and his tall form soon disappeared among the trees. Piute came stooping toward camp so burdened with coyotes that he could scarcely be seen under the gray pile.
"The mescal plant," explained Alvardo, pointing at the little discs, "grows precisely like these little buttons which you see here. It is a species of cactus which rises only half an inch or so from the ground. The stem is surrounded by a clump of blunt leaves which give it its button shape, and on the top you will see still the tuft of filaments, like a cactus.
He took her to his breast and bent his gray head over her. Then the crowd of big and little Naabs burst from the house and came under the cottonwoods to offer noisy welcome to Mescal and Hare. "Jack, you look done up," said Dave Naab solicitously, when the first greetings had been spoken, and Mother Ruth had led Mescal indoors. "Silvermane, too he's wet and winded. He's been running?"
Jack, bounding up, made sure the bear was dead before he looked at Mescal. She was faint. Wolf whined about her. Piute came running from the cedars. Her eyes were still fixed in a look of fear. "I couldn't run I couldn't move," she said, shuddering. A blush drove the white from her cheeks as she raised her face to Jack. "He'd soon have reached me."
One day he and I Santiago, Bernal's father had been drinking mescal. We quarrelled I know not why. It is not well nor right for a padre and a compadre to fight there is trouble in Heaven over that. But there is a way; and we did it as others have done. We took off our sombreros, and put our compadreship on the ground under them. That was all right it was hid there under the hat.
"Such a trick we never heard of," replied August Naab. "If we had we might have spared ourselves the labor of branding the stock." "But that new brand of Holderness's upon yours proves his guilt." "It's not now a question of proof. It's one of possession. Holderness has stolen my water and my stock." "They are worse than rustlers; firing on Mescal and me proves that."
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