"By the cursedest treachery," returned Pedrillo, bitterly and really burning with indignation.
"Which trick has only prevented you attempting a more shameful deed against women and children of your own race—a race that repudiates such as you, though."
"I am a volunteer frontier guard," rejoined the freelance, still more impudently. "If it were not for my band doing soldierly duty along the border, your houses, your sheep, your cattle, your families would not be safe."
"Trash!" returned don Benito. "You are an ally of the redskin murderers, not their repressor."
"This is the first time I have ever been hand in hand with them," went on Pedrillo, pleading direct to the third Mexican whom he knew to be a rich proprietor. "They have forced me to act with them. When one is among wolves, he must howl with them."
"A wolf howls with wolves, but a dog dies battling with them," retorted señor Bustamente.
Diego entered the room at this juncture.
"Well?" demanded the hacendero.
"One dead with his own knife in his heart; one wounded with a pistol shot which went off in the folds of his blanket, the other safe and sound," reported the false guide.
"This Indian will bear me out that I entered on the mad enterprise reluctantly," began the bandolero in a less firm voice.