“No,” objected Wilson, sharply. “You’d have a fight in a minute. Move ahead as though we did not suspect we were checked.”
He flicked the haunches of the leading burro and the patient animal started automatically. But soon his nose reached the breast of an impassive brown man. Wilson stepped forward.
“Greeting,” he said in Spanish.
He received no response.
“Greetings to the chief. Gifts for the chief,” he persisted.
The eyes of the little man in front of him blinked back with no inkling of what lay behind them. It was clear that this was a preconceived, concerted 229 movement. It looked more serious. But Stubbs called cheerily to him:
“See here, m’ boy, there’s one thing we can do; wait for them to make a move. Sit down an’ make yerself comfortable an’ see what happens.”
They gathered the six burros into a circle, tied them with their heads together and then squatted back to back upon the ground beside them. Stubbs drew out his pipe, filled, and lighted it.
“Keep yer gun within reach,” he warned in an undertone to Wilson. “Maybe they don’t mean no harm; maybe they does. We’ll make ’em pay heavy fer what they gits from us, anyhow.”
The surrounding group watched them with silent interest, but at the end of a half hour during which nothing happened more exciting than the relighting of Stubbs’ pipe, they appeared uneasy. They found the strangers as stoical as the burros. Many of the men lounged off, but their places were promptly filled by the women and children so that the circle remained intact. Wilson grew impatient.