Here, to our surprise, we found Mr. Bell again. As Tish remarked, he was better at walking than at talking. He looked surprised at seeing us, and was much more agreeable than before.
"I'm afraid I was pretty surly the other night," he said. "The truth is, I was so blooming unhappy that I didn't give a damn for anything."
But when he saw that Bill was preparing to take the pack off the horse he looked startled.
"I say," he said, "you don't mean to camp here, do you?"
"Such is my intention," Tish observed grimly.
"But look here. Just beyond, at the pass, is where the holdup is to take place to-morrow."
"So I believe," said Tish. "What has that to do with us? What are you going to do?"
"Oh, I'm going to hang round."
"Well, we intend to hang round also."
He stood by and watched our preparations for camp. Tish chose a small grove for the tent, and then left us, clambering up the mountain-side. She finally disappeared. Aggie mixed some muffins for tea, and we invited the young man to join us. But he was looking downhearted again and refused.
However, when she took them out of the portable oven, nicely browned, and lifting the tops of each one dropped in a teaspoonful of grape jelly, he changed his mind.
"I'll stay, if you don't mind," he said. "Maybe some decent food will make me see things clearer."
When Tish descended at six o'clock, she looked depressed. "There is no cave," she said, "although I have gone where a mountain goat would get dizzy. But I have found a good place to hide the horses, where we can get them quickly when we need them."
Aggie was scooping the inside out of her muffin, being unable to eat the crust, but she went quite pale.
"Tish," she said, "you have some desperate plan in view, and I am not equal to it. I am worn with travel and soft food, and am not as young as I once was."
"Desperate nothing!" said Tish, pouring condensed milk into her tea. "I am going to teach a lot of idiots a lesson, that's all. There should be one spot in America free from the advertising man and his schemes, and this is going to be it. Commercialism," she went on, growing oratorical, "does not belong here among these mighty mountains. Once let it start, and these towering cliffs will be defaced with toothpowder and intoxicating-liquor signs."
The young man knew the plans for the holdup even letter than Bill. He was able to show us the exact spot which had been selected, and to tell us the hour at which the Ostermaier party was to cross the pass.