My uncle slipped noiselessly out to where Aunty Boone stood, her head so
near to the canvas wagon-cover inside of which I lay that I could hear
all that was said.

She was always a night prowler. What other women learn now from the
evening newspaper or from neighborly gossip she, being created without a
sense of fear, went forth in her time and gathered at first hand.

"I been prospectin' up 'round the saloon, Cla'nden. They's a nasty mess
of Mexicans in town, all gettin' drunk."

Then I heard a faint rustle of the bushes and I knew that the woman was
slipping away to her place under the wagon. I remembered the Mexican
whom I had last seen across the street from the Clarenden store in
Independence. These were bad Mexicans, as Aunty Boone had said, and that
man had seemed in a silent way a friend of my uncle. I wondered what
would happen next. It soon happened. My uncle Esmond came inside the
wagon and called, softly:

"Gail, wake up."

"I'm awake," I replied, in a half-whisper, as alert as a mystery-loving
boy could be.

"Slip over to Jondo and tell him there are Mexicans in town, and I'm
going across the river to see what's up. Tell him to wake up everybody
and have them stay in the wagons till I get back."

He slid away and the shadows ate him. I followed as far as Jondo's