"Yes, it is a pity Sim didn't manage to find that out; we would have caught them then."
"Have you any idea how strong the band is?"
"They are not often over twenty," the doctor replied. "Twenty is enough for their work, and if there were more the shares of the plunder would be too small; but, as I said, they have got friends everywhere, and could probably gather thirty or forty more if they knew the troops were going to attack them. A Mexican is always ready on principle to join in if there is a chance of getting a shot at an American soldier."
"I suppose you have not the least idea in what direction these fellows have their headquarters?"
"Well, I have some sort of an idea, at any rate I know of one place where there is a party who don't care about being interfered with by strangers. Two or three months ago when Sim and I were away about forty miles over to the north-west, we were in a village just at the mouth of a bit of a valley, and the girl who waited on us at the little wine-shop whispered in my ear when the landlord's back was turned, 'Don't go up the valley.' Well, we were not thinking of going up the valley, which was only a sort of gulch leading nowhere, but after that we thought that we would have a look at it. We took a goodish round so as to get above it, and looked down, and we saw a house lying among some trees, and lower down, near the mouth of the valley, made out two men sitting among some rocks on the shoulder.
"The sun shone on their gun barrels, but that didn't go for much, for the Mexicans out in the country pretty well always go armed. We watched them for a couple of hours, and as they didn't stir we concluded they were sentries. The girl wouldn't have given us that warning unless there had been something wrong, and I expect that house was the headquarters of one of these gangs."
"What made her do it, I wonder, doctor?"
"That I can't say, Lightning. It is never easy to say why a woman does a thing. She may have thought it a pity that Sim and I should get our throats cut, though I own that wouldn't be a thing likely to trouble a Mexican girl. Then she may have had a grudge against them; perhaps they had shot some lover of hers, or one of them may have jilted her. Anyhow, there it was, and if we hear of any attack of brigands upon a hacienda, we will try that place before going any further. And now, lad, you had better be going back. I shall lie here quiet for an hour or two in case there should be anyone watching you, as is likely enough."
Hugh returned to the hotel and told Royce what he had heard.
"That will suit me," Bill said. "I am death on border ruffians, and if ever I see two of them it wur them fellows as sold you the horse at M'Kinney. And so it's their intention to follow us and wipe us out, and get our swag? Waal, maybe it will be the other way. If I was you, Lightning, I would ride over to Don Ramon's this evening, and give him a hint to be on his guard. There is no reason why it should be his place they have got in their mind more than any other. But the fact that they stole the son's horse, to say nothing of killing him, might turn their thoughts that way. If you do a fellow one injury, I reckon that like as not you will do him another. I don't know why it is so, but I reckons it's human nature."