Everyone was dumbfounded, "Enough?" Hardy inquired, unbelieving.
"Too much!" Lopez explained.
"What's the idea?" Pell, shrewder than before, wanted to know. His brow contracted. So there was a fly in the ointment, after all!
"Ze idea, my friend, is zis," Lopez calmly stated. "I am not interest in pieces of paper. I do not accep' checks. Also I am no damn fool! You sink I sink you bring back two 'ondred sousand dollar? Two 'ondred sousand soldier, mebbe! But two 'ondred sousand dollar! Pah!" and he made a gesture of disgust, and crushed the paper in his hand and let it fall on the floor under the table.
"Then what's the idea of this auction in the first place?" Pell asked, mad through and through that they had been tricked by this Mexican fool.
Lopez leaned back on the table. "To find out if you gentlemen was rich enough to make it worth my w'ile to take you wiz me and 'old you for ransom." His eyes half closed. He was enjoying their discomfiture. There was nothing he liked more than to spring a surprise like this.
Pell and Hardy looked at each other, real terror in their faces now.
"Ransom!" the former cried.
"It is quite to be seen zat you are," the bandit grinned. "Zis, if I may speak so, 'as been a lucky day for me!"