“Sure Mike!” replied Billy, and made his way through the pandemonium of the camp toward the headquarters tent.
As he went he slipped his hand inside his shirt and loosened something which hung beneath his left arm.
“Li'l ol' ace-in-the-hole,” he murmured affectionately.
He found Pesita pacing back and forth before his tent—an energetic bundle of nerves which no amount of hard riding and fighting could tire or discourage.
As Billy approached Pesita shot a quick glance at his face, that he might read, perhaps, in his new officer's expression whether anger or suspicion had been aroused by the killing of his American friend, for Pesita never dreamed but that Bridge had been dead since mid-forenoon.
“Well,” said Pesita, smiling, “you left Senor Bridge and Miguel safely at their destination?”
“I couldn't take 'em all the way,” replied Billy, “cause I didn't have no more men to guard 'em with; but I seen 'em past the danger I guess an' well on their way.”
“You had no men?” questioned Pesita. “You had six troopers.”
“Oh, they was all croaked before we'd been gone two hours. You see it happens like this: We got as far as that dry arroyo just before the trail drops down into the valley, when up jumps a bunch of this here Villa's guys and commenced takin' pot shots at us.
“Seein' as how I was sent to guard Bridge an' Mig, I makes them dismount and hunt cover, and then me an' my men wades in and cleans up the bunch. They was only a few of them but they croaked the whole bloomin' six o' mine.