The Spaniard made no reply to this and silence fell between them for a few minutes.

“Oh!” said Flick, as if suddenly remembering something, something in which he was not particularly interested, but which would serve as a topic of conversation during these tense moments of waiting; “Nitschkan is up at Colina, and Mrs. Thomas.”

“Nitschkan!” A faintly humorous smile crept from Gallito’s mouth up to his eyes.

He was genuinely interested if Flick was not.  “What is she doing there?”

“She came up to look after those prospects of hers, nurse them along a little, I guess, and to hunt and fish some, I guess, particularly hunt and fish.  She says she’s going to take a bear-skin or so back with her.”

“She sure will, if she says so,” returned Gallito confidently.

“Of course, she got wise to Jose right away.”  Flick spoke rather anxiously.

“Of course, being Nitschkan.”  Gallito’s tone was quite composed and equable.  “Well, she’s safe, and she’ll keep him in order if anybody can.”  Again that grimly humorous smile played about his mouth.  “Why did she bring Mrs. Thomas?”

Flick laughed.  “To keep her in order, too.  Mrs. Thomas is big and pretty, with no mind of her own, and she got tangled up in some fool love affair that her friends didn’t approve of, so when Nitschkan started off on this last gipsy expedition of hers they sent Mrs. Thomas with her.”

Gallito was about to answer and then, suddenly, he seemed to stiffen, his hand, which was conveying a match to his cigarette, remained motionless, the flame of the match flared up and then went out in a gust of wind.  “Look, Bob, look,” he said, in a low voice.  “What do you see out there?”

Flick’s eyes, keener even than his, swept the desert.  “By George!” he whispered huskily; “it’s her, her alone, and coming like the wind.”

“I hope,” cried Gallito and gnawed his lip, “that she has done nothing that will get us into trouble.”

“I hope to God she has,” said Flick.  “The desert’ll take care that she gets into no trouble.  It’ll be as silent as the grave.  Just another case of a reckless tenderfoot getting lost out there in the sand, that’s all.”

It was indeed Pearl, and, as Flick had said, coming like the wind.  She pulled her horse up as she neared the gate and, when she reached it, stopped him abruptly, slipped down from the saddle, threw the bridle over the fence paling and ran toward the two men on the porch.  Her face had changed but little since she had left Hanson among the palms.  Even her wild ride had failed to bring back its color, and the curl of her upper lip still revealed her teeth.

She stood for a moment before them, slashing her skirt with her riding crop, then she cast it from her and sank down on the porch as if suddenly exhausted.  Bob Flick quickly poured out a glass of her father’s cognac and held it to her lips.  She took a sip of it and it seemed to revive her.