“Certainly.” Coravel Tio smiled, gazing at him. “You will not work for a native, my friends. Ah, no! Be here at two this afternoon, please.”
The two men left the shop. Outside, in the Street, they paused and looked at each other. The second man, Lewis, swore under his breath.
“Joe, how in hell did he know we was worried over workin’ for a greaser boss?”
Gilbert merely shrugged his shoulders and strode away.
Within the shop, Coravel Tio turned to the waiting Indian and spoke—this time neither in Spanish nor English, but in the Indian tongue itself. As he spoke, however, he saw the stolid redskin make a slight gesture. Catlike, Coravel Tio turned about and went to meet a man who had just entered the shop; catlike, too, he purred suave greeting.
A large man, this new arrival—square of head and jaw and shoulder, with small gray eyes closely set, a moustache bristling over a square mouth, ruthless hardness stamped in every line of figure, face, and manner. He was dressed carelessly but well.
“Morning,” he said, curtly. His eyes bit sharply about the place, then rested with intent scrutiny upon the proprietor. “Morning, Coravel Tio. I been looking for someone who can talk Injun. I’ve got a proposition that won’t handle well in Spanish; it’s got to be put to ’em in their own tongue. I hear that you can find me someone.”
Regretfully, Coravel Tio shook his head.
“No—o,” he said, in reflective accents. “I am sorry, Mr. Mackintavers. My clerk, Juan Estrada, spoke their language, but he joined the army and is still in service. Myself, I know of it only a word or two. But wait! Here is a Cochiti man who sells me turquoise; he might serve you as interpreter, if he is willing.”
He called the loitering Indian, and in the bastard Spanish patois of the country put the query. Mackintavers, who also spoke the tongue well, intervened and tried to employ the Indian as interpreter. To both interrogators the Pueblo shook his head in stolid negation. He would not serve in the desired capacity, and knew of no one else who would.