Cautiously they moved forward, lower and lower.

Then they darted and grasped with speed what seemed to be some sand.

Something in the sand objected, but the boy held on and gathered sand and all into his tin.

He looked with much satisfaction at his presumably indignant prisoner, a spiny gray "horned toad" that had been peaceably sunning himself, nearly buried in sand, on the hill.
The owner of the two nimble hands, Arturo, smiled.
"Get four bit, maybe!" he anticipated.
"Get four bit for tia Marta!" In California "four bits" means a half dollar.

Occasionally somebody on the overland train that stopped at the station in town would be attracted toward a spiny "horned toad" as a curiosity, and would buy one.