"I'll have some chuck ready in about three minutes," he told them,
quietly. "An' we'll be gittin' a start."

"In the middle of the night!" expostulated Hapgood, his words all but
lost in a yawn.

"I ain't got my clock along this trip, stranger. But I reckon if we
want to git acrost them hills before it gits hot we'll be travelin'
real soon. Leastways," as he turned and went back to squat over the
little fire he had blazing merrily near the watering-trough, "I'm
goin' to dig out in about twenty minutes."

Hapgood, remembering the ride of yesterday, scrambled to his feet even
before Conniston. And the two young men, having washed their faces and
hands at the pipe which discharged its cold stream into the trough,
joined the Half Moon man.

He had already fried bacon, and now was cooking some flapjacks in the
grease which he had carefully saved. The coffee was bubbling away
gaily, sending its aroma far and wide upon the whispering morning
breeze. The skies were still dark, their stars not yet gone from them.
Only the faintest of dim, uncertain lights in the horizon told where
the east was and where before long the sun would roll up above the
floor of the desert. The horses, already hitched to the buckboard,
were vague blots in the darkness about them.

They ate in silence, the two Easterners too tired and sleepy to talk,
Lonesome Pete evidently too abstracted. And when the short meal was
over it was Lonesome Pete who cleaned out the few cooking-utensils and
stored them away in the buckboard while Conniston and Hapgood smoked