“You couldn’t drive him alone out of sight of the lights in the house with fire. He’d come back with some kind of a lie before he’d went a mile. I’ll go to ’em myself, honey—I didn’t think of them.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Wait till Alvino comes with them guns—I can use ’em better than I can a rifle. Oh, why don’t the man hurry!”
“I’ll run down and see what—”
But Alvino came around the corral at that moment. He had stopped to light a lantern, in his peculiar Mexican mode of estimating the importance of time and occasion, and came flashing it in short, violent arcs as he swayed to swing his jointless leg.
Frances led out the other horse and was waiting to mount when Alvino came panting up, the belt with its two revolvers over his arm. Mrs. Chadron jerked it from him with something hard and sharp on her tongue like a curse. Banjo Gibson came into the circle of light, a bandage on his head.
“I didn’t even see ’em. They knocked me down, and when I come to she was gone!”
Banjo’s voice was full of self-censure, and his feet were weak upon the ground. He began to talk the moment the light struck him, and when he had finished his little explanation he was standing beside Mrs. Chadron’s saddle.
“Go to the house and lie down, Banjo,” Mrs. Chadron said; “I ain’t time to fool with you!”