“Me!” The coals of her anger sent forth a last flash that was immediately quenched by her mischievous smile. “Or blame yourself for leaving me the machete. I wiggled and wiggled till one hand was free, then cut the rope.”
Combined with the smile, her little illustrative wriggle completed his rout. He turned to hide a grin, but was betrayed by his shaking shoulders. Noting it, she flashed with feminine quickness from defendant to accuser. She pointed at the halters.
“What are you going to do?”
Sliver and Jake had now come out. The former answered, “We was jest about to bump ’em off, Miss.”
“What? Hang them?”
“Now look a-here, Lady-girl!” Sliver burst forth in indignant remonstrance. “Didn’t we catch ’em red-handed? An’ d’you allow we’re a-going to let ’em loose to try again?”
“But hang them? Just for stealing? Of course, if they were Colorados, but—” She stopped, clasping her hands in sudden fear. “Oh! they killed him—poor Pedro?”
“Nary; jes’ tied him up,” Sliver quickly reassured her. “I seen him wiggling through the glass, an’ the big thief, there, says they didn’t harm him.”
Sighing with sudden relief, she returned to the charge. “Then if they spared him, why are you going to kill them?”
“Look a-here, Missy,” Bull now intervened. “’Twas agreed between Benson an’ all the hacendados to make an example of captured raiders. If you once start letting ’em off, there won’t be a head of stock left in all this country at the end of a year. That was why I wanted you to go back, an’—”