"I may as well say it, for you have guessed it, Carlos. Yes, I will say it. Even if this Gringo pair appear honestly to aid me in making the sale—and even if I do make the sale and receive the money—this Gringo pair must die. We know how to arrange that, eh, my staunch Carlos?"
Dr. Tisco shrugged his shoulders.
"Of course, we can put them out of the way, at any time, with secrecy and dispatch, Don Luis. But what will be the use—provided they help you to get the American money into your hands? To be sure, the new buyers will soon find that they have a worthless mine on their hands, but that may happen with the finest mine. The new buyers will never be able to prove that you brought all of your pretty-looking ore from another mine. You can depend upon the secrecy of the people from whom you have been buying the baiting ore for El Sombrero."
"Ah, but there is another side to that, Carlos. If Senores Reade and Hazelton serve us, and then go safely back to the United States, they can swear that they found and knew El Sombrero to be worthless. Then their evidence, flanked by the sudden running-out of El Sombrero, will make a case that the new American buyers could take into court."
"Let them take it into court," proposed the secretary, contemptuously. "The governor of Bonista rules the judges of the courts of the state of Bonista with an iron hand. Rest assured that, if the Americans were to take their claims into the courts of this state, the judges would decide for you, and that would be the end of the matter. And do you believe, Don Luis, that, after Senores Reade and Hazelton once get alive out of Bonista, any consideration would tempt them to come back here to testify? They have sampled your power,"
"Yet why do you object, Carlos, to having the Gringo pair put out of the way?"
"I do not care anything about their lives," Tisco declared, coolly. "It is only on general business principles that it seems to me unwise to have human lives taken when it is not necessary. He who resorts too often to the taking of life is sure to meet his own doom."
"Not in Bonista," jeered Montez, "and not where Don Luis is concerned in business matters."
"As you will, then," sighed the secretary. "You will please your own self, anyway, Don Luis."
"Truly, Carlos. And so I have decided that these Gringo engineers shall perish, anyway, as soon as they have served my purpose."