Hill Coe had not been able to bring along enough whiskey to make him thoroughly drunk, so he and Happy Jack and Pleasant Burnell gambled most of the night. Viv Maldonado, who hated sandstorms as much as I did, made a kind of tent of his heavy serape and hid in it, muttering and grumbling in Italian. Simp Dixon said he didn’t think he could sleep for fear of scorpions, which he claimed preferred sandy sites; but he lay down anyway and was soon snoring. His snore made the kind of sound a rasp makes against a horse’s hoof. Henry Knogle, the Tadpole, whistled most of the night, while his large companion, Barbecue Campbell, slept sitting up, his head fallen forward. From time to time he sneezed, his nose tickled by his own fine beard.

Joe Lovelady went out and sniffed the wind; when he returned he carefully led his horse inside, to the surprise of the gamblers.

“Why, you’re too cautious by far,” Hill Coe said with a stern look. “Even if they find us I doubt they’d shoot the horses. It would be poor economy.”

Joe didn’t reply. His horse was a young sorrel gelding with a fine head. He stood where Joe placed him and didn’t move during the night.

The wind howled and the sand blew through the open door; from time to time the wind blew out the candle, but the gamblers always relit it. Joe Lovelady tucked his blanket around him and slept with his back to the wall, his bridle rein knotted around one wrist.

“Joe might be right, Hill,” Pleasant Burnell remarked. “They might shoot the horses, and if they do we’re all fried fish.”

“And I say none of them’s Indian enough even to track us on a night like this,” Hill Coe replied with a bit of asperity.

“The tall nigger’s Indian enough,” Happy Jack said. “He’ll come on his camel, I guess—camels like sandstorms.”

“I’ll kill that tall nigger if he comes,” Hill Coe said. He looked hopeful for a moment. I believe it had just dawned on him that if he killed Mesty-Woolah his fame would be so great that no one would dare recall his defeat at target shooting.

Soon the wind snatched the candle’s flame again. The gamblers ceased to clink their gold; all were soon asleep.

I didn’t sleep, though. I believed Joe Lovelady was right. Isinglass would ride all night and be on us in the morning. I didn’t want to die, and I dreaded the thought of a battle; yet I felt curiously calm.