She went hot and cold; she cast a quick glance toward the forest land where the night was thickening; she cast another glance at his rifle where it lay, a few feet from the fire. Then, her lower lip caught between her teeth, she went to the tin can in which she and Babe Deveril had made coffee.
"A funny thing," said Bruce Standing, watching her; "you skipped out, hot-foot, from Big Pine, thinking you had killed me! And your little friend, meaning Baby Devil, skipped along, thinking he had done Jim Taggart in! And, after all, nobody much hurt!... Glad to hear that Taggart did not die?"
"I knew it already," she said, just to cheat him of any satisfaction in telling her.
"Mexicali Joe skipped this way, too," he went on swiftly, so swiftly that he succeeded in tricking her into saying:
"Now there remains little for you to tell me. You knew Taggart was still on his feet and you knew Joe was travelling this way, and you've come up from the general direction of Joe's dugout! Which tells me one thing: where you and Baby Devil got the coffee and this tinned stuff. Now let's hear details!"
"You've told me that before. And...." He burst into booming laughter. And then, still laughter-choked, he cried: "Like a good old-time two-handled sword is the man Bruce Standing! And yet his wit, like a Spanish dagger, is good match for a girl's!"
She made no reply, though her blood tingled, and though her hand, with a will of its own, must be held back from striking him across the face again. She brought him his coffee and thereafter food which he called for from among the tins.
"What do you think has happened to your gentleman friend?" he mocked her. And when she refused to reply, he told her: "He's gone on ... where? After Taggart? To get a rifle and come back? Planning to hide behind a tree and pop me off while I'm not looking? That would make a hit with you, wouldn't it? Like your own best game of shooting a man in the back! Or has he forgotten a pair of bright eyes and warm arms and red lips? And is he content to trail Mexicali, spying on him, trying to get in on the new gold diggings? Which, girl?"
"He hates you!... with cause. And he is no coward; he is as good a man, if less brute, as you, Bruce Standing!..."