Tish's satisfaction was unbounded. She stated that the flesh of the mountain lion was much like veal, and so indeed it proved. We made a nourishing soup of it, with potatoes and a can of macédoine vegetables, and within an hour and a half we had dined luxuriously, adding to our repast what remained of the sandwiches, and a tinned plum pudding of English make, very nutritious and delicious.
For twenty minutes after the meal we all stood. Tish insists on this, as aiding digestion. Then we prepared for the night's work.
I believe that our conduct requires no defense. But it may be well again to explain our position. These people, whose camp-fire glowed so brazenly against the opposite cliff, had for purely mercenary motives committed a cruel hoax. They had posed as bandits, and as bandits they deserved to be treated. They had held up our own clergyman, of a nervous temperament, on a mountain pass, and had taken from him a part of his stipend. It was heartless. It was barbarous. It was cruel.
My own courage came back with the hot food, which I followed by a charcoal tablet. And the difference in Aggie was marked. Possibly some of the courage of the mountain lion, that bravest of wild creatures, had communicated itself to her through the homely medicine of digestion.
"I can hardly wait to get after them," she said.
However, it was still too early for them to have settled for the night. We sat down, having extinguished our fire, and I was just dozing off when Tish remembered the young man who was to have listened for the police whistle.
"I absolutely forgot him," she said regretfully. "I suppose he is hanging round the foot of Piegan's Pass yet. I'm sorry to have him miss this. I shall tell him, when I see him, that no girl worth having would be sitting over there at supper with four moving-picture actors without a chaperon. The whole proceeding is scandalous. I have noticed," she added, "that it is the girls from quiet suburban towns who are really most prone to defy the conventions when the chance comes."
We dozed for a short time.
Then Tish sat up suddenly. "What's that?" she said.
We listened and distinctly heard the tramp of horses' feet. We started up, but Tish was quite calm.
"They've turned their horses out," she said. "Fortune is with us. They are coming this way."
But at first it did not seem so fortunate, for we heard one of the men following them, stumbling along, and, I regret to say, using profane language. They came directly toward us, and Aggie beside me trembled. But Tish was equal to the emergency.