Sidewinder nodded, with a slight look of chagrin at the slip he had so nearly made. To have left the horses here unwatched would indeed have been fatal.
“All right,” he said curtly. “You stay. Don’t bother the lady none. Better go on down to the lower cañon. I’ll send a driver back with the other boys and a load of grub in one o’ the cars. Then you boys get back to Hourglass in a hurry, and get started. I’ll have José Garcia out here by morning to ride herd on things.”
“And shall I hamstring this hombre now?” asked Ximines, gesturing with his cigarette toward Ramsay, who was glad that Miss Gilman could not understand the Mexican tongue.
“Let him wait till tonight. You’ll likely need help to hold him down, and we aint got any time to waste now. Come on, boys.”
With this, Sidewinder started down the cañon, Tom Emery and Cholo Bill at his heels. Manuel Ximines, however, remained sitting where he was, a thin smile on his black-avised features, in his glittering dark eyes the wild cruelty and the cunning that mark the marihuana-smoker.
Not until the three departing figures were out of sight around the bend did the girl move. Then, as Ximines showed no intention of leaving, she rose to her feet.
“Well?” she demanded sharply. “I suppose I may release Mr. Ramsay?”
Ximines turned his head and surveyed her. Under that gaze she shrank, and the color ebbed from her cheeks.
“You stay quiet or I shoot heem.” With this, the Mexican resumed his cigarette and stared again down the cañon.
The girl flashed a terrified, wondering look at Ramsay, who had drawn closer a step or two. His eyes, vainly trying to give her a message of warning, terrified her the more, and she stood motionless before the tent. Ximines, who perhaps wanted to let Sidewinder and the other two men get well away, paid her no attention but smoked on reflectively and stared down the cañon. He had drawn his pistol, however, and now held it idly in his lap.