“Ramon!” she spoke with dread earnestness, “look quickly behind you!”
He did, and his quick frown told that he was not pleased. Dismounting under a pretext of cinching up his saddle, he motioned for the two men behind to pass ahead.
“You saw!” she said, riding on. “You are armed, but they are four to one; may take you unawares. I ask only one thing. Keep my feet bound, take any other precaution you choose, but unfasten my hands and—lend me your knife.”
“To use on me, if you get the chance?”
“Not on you nor them!” Her steady look carried her meaning.
His glance went forward to the revolutionists, who broke out, just then, in uproarious laughter.
“If I thought—” His hand went to his gun, then fell again. “No! they are rough and coarse, but they know well that my father is Valles’s friend; that if they lifted a hand against me he would flay them alive. Really, there is no danger, yet—if it will make you less fearful. But you promise—to return it, the knife, at San Carlos?”
“I promise.”
“I never knew you to lie, and I—” His face lost a little of its hardness. “I would prefer to be gentle.”
Leaning over, he unbound her arms, then gave her the case-knife that hung at his hip. “I suppose I’m a fool,” he said as she slid it under her belt inside her shirt.