WHEREIN A MAN PROVES HIMSELF A CRAVEN, A SHOT RINGS OUT, AND THE BAD MAN EXPLAINS ONE LITTLE HOUR
A heavy silence fell upon the men who were left in the room. The bandit, unconcerned, puffed his cigarette. Hardy and Pell felt like rats in a trap. Only Uncle Henry was passive. In the tense stillness, the clock could be heard ticking on and on. Pell was beginning to crack beneath the strain. Suddenly he began to pace the floor, his hands behind his back. No tiger in a cage was ever more impatient in his captivity.
"If you want money," he finally got out, "for heaven's sake, tell me how much, and ..."
Lopez quickly interrupted him. His fury boiled over at the insinuation. "Be still!" he cried. "You will please be quiet. I 'ave business to sink out which are 'ard."
Pell was equally angry. "Why, damn you ..." he sputtered.
He should have known better. Coldly Lopez took him in. "I 'ave been patient wiz you—too patient. I see zat now." The other returned his keen gaze, and for an instant he did not quail; but finally he could stand the strain no longer. His eyes fell away, and for the first time in all their bitter encounter he felt himself sinking. A terrible uncertainty came over him. This Mexican, this beast, was going to do something desperate. There was not the shadow of a doubt about that. He must go carefully: he must not lose his self-control. To do so would be madness.
Luckily, Uncle Henry broke the tension just then: "Am I going to get my money back?" he cried out. And his chair projected itself into their midst.
Lopez faced Hardy, across the table. "Señor Loan Fish," he said, "if my frand, 'e pay you ze money, zen ze rancho belong to him?"
"If he pays me before eight o'clock," the other replied promptly.
"Señor Wall Street," the bandit now addressed Pell, "you 'ave ten sousand dollar. I want it."
Pell was amazed. "But I—"
Lopez snapped his fingers. Pedro, who came back at that very moment, took the money from Pell, and watched his master closely for further instructions as to what to do. Lopez nodded toward Smith.
"For 'im," he said.
"For me?" cried Uncle Henry, joyfully.
"I must make my frand 'appy," the bandit said. Pedro gave the money to Uncle Henry. The latter grabbed it as a child might have grabbed a cooky.
Lopez turned to Pell. "Now—you is rob." To Hardy he said: "You is paid," and to Uncle Henry, "An' you get your money back. Bueno! Ees finish."
Pell was cynical. "I'll say that's service," he murmured; and a sardonic grin came to his thin lips. Perhaps the bandit was joking, after all. But damn these jokes that kept one in long after school!
Uncle Henry, however, had a strange apprehension, and wheeled about, facing Lopez.
"You ain't goin' to take it back from me, are you?" he inquired.
"No, Ooncle Hennery," the bandit laughed, "she is yours for keeps. Zat is all. You may go!" And he waved him out. "And you," to Hardy. "Pedro, show zem into ze open space!"
"'Im too?" asked Pedro, indicating Morgan Pell who stood, as though made of stone, in one corner.
"Poco tiempo!" the bandit said.
"Debommultalo!" his henchman replied.
"Si," Lopez smiled. And Pedro got the invalid and the lanky Hardy through the door, as a woman might have swept two geese from her path.
Left alone with the bandit, Pell remarked:
"Look here, there must be some way to settle this thing." But he had grave fears.
"To zat, I 'ave come at last," the bandit replied with an emphasis that could not be mistaken.
"You have?" Pell's voice was weak.
"It shall cost me planty money. I could 'ave tooken you wiz me for ransom—'elluva big ransom—a million dollar, mebbe. But I am not soddid!" He laughed, and rubbed his hands together.
"You aren't going to hold me for ransom?" Pell questioned, relief in his voice.
"No."
"What—what are you doing to do?"
The reply was as swift as an arrow. "Kill you."
Pell did not believe what he heard.
"Kill me?" he repeated, his head on one side, like a bird listening, and pointing to his chest.
"Si." Lopez had never used a politer tone.
"You—you're joking." There was a crack in Pell's voice.
"Joking?"
"You must be!" huskily. "I thought so all along—now I'm sure of it."
The bandit faced him, and threw his cigarette over his shoulder in the chimney-place. "Do I look like a joker?"
"You sit there, like that, and talk of killing me in cold blood?"
Lopez took him in through half-closed lids. "I do not like you. Nobody like you. Alive, you are no good. Dead, you make two people which I love 'appy. You get me, Señor Wall Street?"
"Oh, I see," cried Pell, wildly, and doing his best to keep his legs from giving way, "you would kill me so that my wife can marry this Gilbert Jones?" A sickly smile curled around his mouth.
Lopez nodded. "Si, señor."
"If that's all, I'll give her a divorce!"
"You weel give her a divorce?" Lopez repeated, pretending to be much interested and pleased.
Pell saw a gleam of hope through the darkness of this moment. "Yes," came breathlessly from him. "Then she can marry him. Don't you see? If that's all you want—he can have her." He was shaking now in every limb. Escape was almost his. He knew he could not be done away with. "I'll give her to him!" He staggered toward Lopez, "I will! I swear I will!" he screamed, his words reaching a high falsetto.
Lopez rose. "I would look at you once before I shoot," he said slowly, and took in the other's cringing form.
"What?" Pell said.
Disgust was on the features of the bandit—contempt and unbelievable loathing.
"I 'ave met mans which would not fight for zeir money," he said with great deliberation, his lip curled. "I 'ave met mans which would not fight for zeir lives. But I 'ave never before met ze man which would not fight for 'is woman."
Pell saw that he was doomed now. He made one final desperate attempt. "But if you—shoot me—you'll be hanged!"
"Ha!" laughed Lopez. "If I am ever caught, I shall be 'anged many times!"
"I'm an American citizen!" shrilled Pell.
"I 'ave kill many American citizens," replied Lopez, without the slightest compunction.
Pell wrung his hands. "My Goverment will pursue you!"
"You are mistaken. Your Government will watchfully wait. We kill American citizen. Your Government write us beautiful letter about it.... But we have waste time!" He drew his gun.
As Lopez leveled the weapon. Pell all but dropped on his knees. "Wait!" he cried. "I'll give you money! Plenty of money! A million dollars! Yes, two million!" It could not be that so shameful a fate was to be his.
"It is not zat we want money," the bandit replied. "It is zat we don't want you."
Terror seized poor Pell. "But for God's sake," he wailed, "you wouldn't do that! You couldn't! Without even a chance for my life. At least fight me fair!" His voice seemed far away to him—like the voice of another being from a distant world.
"Fair?" Lopez rolled the word over.
"Give me a gun, too!" the fool prayed.
"Give you a gun! Pedro!" The man had evidently been just outside the door, and came in at once. "Pedro, you 'ear?" And Pedro grinned.
"Yes! Give me a chance!"
"I shall never understand ze American idea. I give you a gun, you say?"
"Yes! That's the least you can do!" Pell was weeping now.
"But if I should give you a gun, you might shoot me wiz it!" Lopez laughed.
"You won't?"
"I am no damn fool!" the bandit cried. And he deliberately raised his gun again.
"You're not going to kill me? No! for the love of God, don't!" He plunged forward, groveling at Lopez's feet. A woman in a melodrama could not have begged harder for mercy. "Spare me!" were the words that fell from his pitiful lips. "For God's sake, spare me! I'll do anything! Go anywhere! He can have her! You can have her! Her, and all the money I've got, if only you'll spare my life!"
The bandit looked down in utter disgust at the cringing form. Never had he seen anything in the world that he detested more. Pell's fingers were on the bandit's boots.
"I did not know zat even a dog could be so yellow," he said. Then he turned to Pedro. "I do not 'unt rabbits. You kill 'im, Pedro." And he would not look again on the miserable specimen of a man that wallowed there on the floor.
"Ah! for the love of God!" came from Pell, who had half risen. At that instant Pedro shot from his hip at the debased creature. The form stiffened and collapsed like a bag, falling partially under the table.
"It is a good deed," said Lopez, turning. "He was evil man."
The shot had been heard without. "Red," Gilbert, Hardy, and a few Mexicans rushed in at the sound.
"Who shot?" cried the former.
"Pedro," said Lopez.
"But what was he shooting at?" "Red" asked.
Lopez smiled. "Only ze 'usband."
"What!" cried "Red." He turned and saw the body of Pell lying sprawled on the floor, and horror came over him. "You've killed him!" His voice was husky.
"I 'ave. Most enjoyishly!" said Lopez, lighting a cigarette.
Gilbert went over and stared down at the mute frame. "He's dead," he announced. "Completely. Pedro never misses," was the bandit's only comment.
"But to kill a man—like that! In cold blood!" Hardy gasped. "Oh, it's horrible!"
"Why not?" Lopez wanted to know. "Ze skindler, ze coward what beat his wife. Was evil man." What white-livered folk these Americans were!
Gilbert looked down at Pell's body, which had now, in death, a certain curious dignity. "But don't you see what you've done?"
Lopez looked at him in bland amazement. "You wouldn't still fool around wiz ze foolish law, ze silly court?" he inquired. "Do you not see 'ow much better is my way? One hour ago you 'ave no money, no rancho, no woman. One little hour! Ze money she is paid, ze rancho she is yours, and ze woman what you want to marry is free for do so!" He looked Gilbert in the eyes, and came close to him. "Tell me, 'ave I not keep my promise? 'Ave I not make you, in one little hour, a 'appy man?"