“Well, mebbe he has. They ain’t so hard to get. What I want to know is how are we going to get him into the car?”
Scott tried to swallow his desire to choke the slim youth on the other side. “Come, Pachuca,” he said, “this won’t get you anywhere. Either tell us where the girl is and go your way, or come over here and fight it out.”
“I don’t know where she is. As for fighting—well, if I kill you what do I get out of it? Also, you might quite possibly kill me.”
“If I only knew she was in the cabin, he could go and welcome,” was rushing through Scott’s brain. “But I don’t and I mustn’t let him get away.”
Suddenly, a sound broke upon their ears—the sound of an automobile. It was coming down the canyon and coming fast. Merriam seized his horn.
“We can’t have ’em coming down on us in this narrow place!” he cried, honking furiously. The other car answered. The Mexicans turned at the sound and Pachuca, casting a hurried glance at them over his shoulder, reached for his bridle. Scott raised his gun instantly.
“You stay where you are!” he yelled. “If those are your people we’ll get the lot of you; if they’re not we’ve got you, anyhow, sabe?”
Pachuca gave one look at Scott and another at his flying friends. Then he threw himself upon his horse’s back, thrust the spur in deep, and as the horse reared, drew his gun. His shot and Scott’s rang out together as they had done once before in front of the store at Athens—but with a different result. Pachuca reeled, recovered, spurred the horse again and tore off in the direction taken by the flying Mexicans; Scott stood looking furiously at him for a moment then staggered to the machine.
“He got me, Henry,” he muttered, as he toppled over. “Look after the girl.”
And the other machine came rumbling on through the dusk.