"All right," said the other, rising. "I thought it neighbourly to give you a chance. Sing away to your own pitch pipe."
He went over to Gladsden, who leant on the counter, whilst doña Perla, on the other side of the room, contemplated the scene curiously. The discovery that one of the strangers was the hero of her childhood's romance, had filled her with complete confidence, and she thought no more of prayer.
"Tiger Cat is a stubborn knot," said Oliver. "I can't squeeze anything out'n him. He's never spared anyone, and when we quit this house I propose to set fire to it over his head. He has burned many a Christian alive, and it's sauce for the goose to roast him, too."
He said this so naturally that Gladsden knew he was not threatening wantonly, and so firmly that he forbore to argue with him.
"I am quite right in saying that the Apaches will never leave this place till they know the fate of their chief. They will soon attack the robbers. When they close we will sally out, trust to luck to seize three hosses for ourselves and the little doña, or to reach cover. At the last moment, since Tío Camote has been false and useless to me, I shall broach a cask or two, which will make a glorious bonfire, and the Apaches will only have their chief in a puchero (stew), with mezcal sauce!"
Nature now clamoured for sleep and food. Oliver seemed able to do without the former, but he never refused solid sustenance when available, like all the wanderers whose life is an irregular alternation of feasts and fasts.
Camote produced some sausage and corn cakes, as well as deer meat, of which doña Perla partook. Gladsden and she dozed off, neither of them heeding the continual popping of shots at long range between the Apaches and the robbers. At about eleven o'clock, when the heat was perceptible in the closed-in room without large windows or other proper vent than the narrow smoke hole aloft, Oliver made a sign for attention. The landlord was eating and drinking noisily near the Apache prisoner, tantalising him with all a coward's cruelty. His two aids had disappeared under the counter, asleep deeply, if their mellifluous nasal breathing afforded a sure indication.
At the back of the ranch there was audible a scratching at the ground. Some living thing was trying to burrow into the house. At the same time the fusillade of the Indians assumed a more regular form. Under cover of the guns the bowmen had advanced, and the twang of the string once or twice came to the ear to prove that they had pushed on near the dwelling.
It was provoking to see nothing of the skirmish, protracted vexatiously, like all such warfare.
Suddenly Oliver took up a large empty cask and placed it on the counter.