“Again an empty house!”
By one and another it was kept up. “We limp like lame cats,” the first man spoke again. “If this business go like the first and there be no horses—I know of one throat that will be cut.”
“And I of another!” The guide, an ugly, squat peon, turned on him with a snarl. “Was it I that sent up the warning smoke? No? Then fasten your tongue with your teeth. If you want women, they are to be had at San Carlos, a few hours away, a fine town untouched by war.”
“Si, more marching,” the first grumbler was beginning, when the other cut him off. He had advanced to the edge of the plateau and stood pointing down into the Bowl.
“And horses, say you? There they are—scores! Si, hundreds! enough to make us all rich when sold at the border.”
Success! the shibboleth of the modern world! Even among these scoundrels it wrought the customary effect; turned malcontents into enthusiastic friends. “Bueno!” He who had issued the sinister hint of cut throats was the first to clap the guide on the back. “Bueno, amigo! thou art a leader indeed. ’Twas no fault of thine that the white-skinned girl escaped. I will slit the gizzard of the next that says it.”
On his part the guide swelled and ruffled in the flattering sunlight. “I told ye. ‘Leave it to Filomena,’ said I. ‘Leave it to him to show ye fat booty.’ Behold!”
Also he assumed the airs and authority of real leadership. “The horses we shall need to rope fresh mounts. Hide the stuff in the bushes till we return. ’Twill be only for a couple of hours.”
Fired by the sight of the horses, the raiders fell feverishly to work unloading their loot, which—Gordon noted it with satisfaction—was largely provisions. Then, lameness and blisters forgotten, unaware of the cold, fierce eyes watching from the bushes, they followed the horsemen downhill, yelling and hooting, raising the echoes with snatches of ribald song.
A thin wisp of smoke above the jacal followed by an explosive flash as the dry thatch took fire announced their arrival at the bottom. From above Gordon and Lee saw them move down the valley in a long line that presently came sweeping back in a half-circle with the horses in its belly.