"Am I not paying you?"
"Yes."
"Then take my orders and do not ask questions."
At this there were sounds of dissatisfaction from all four of these bad men.
"For one thing," Gato explained, "Don Luis would not like it. He would accuse me of treachery—or worse. I do not want Don Luis's ill will, you see."
"But Don Luis will be angry, in any case, if you injure his engineers, won't he?" asked one of the men.
"A little, but after a while, Don Luis will not care what I do to the Americanos," growled Pedro Gato.
"Humph! That's interesting—if true," whispered Tom Reade.
"Yet what are we doing here?" insisted one of the men. "Here, so close to where the troops might pick us up?"
"You are obeying orders," snarled Gato.