“Surely.” She accepted, at once, his offer, and when, moreover, he followed in after Miguel opened the prison door, she offered no objection.
Neither did the raiders—for reasons that quickly developed. “It matters not, señorita.” The man whose face had caused Bull such disturbance shrugged his indifference when Lee explained that Gordon spoke no Spanish. “’Tis of the others, your servants, I would speak.”
While crossing the compound she had puckered her smooth brow over the mystery—without gaining any inkling to break the force of the communication. While the fellow ran on, hands and shoulders helping out his torrential Spanish, Gordon saw her expression pass through surprise, incredulity, doubt, finally settle in deep concern, when, with emphasis that carried conviction, the other three testified to the truth of their fellow’s words.
“I— Oh, do you know what they say?” Distressed, she turned to Gordon with blind instinct for help. “I really don’t know whether I ought to tell you. It so dreadfully, pitifully concerns our poor friends. You have been here such a short time, yet—I feel that you can be trusted. They say—”
But the tale, as elaborated and filled in by Gordon’s cross-examination, is best summed. Not for nothing had been Bull’s “hunch.” The haunting face fitted the charro who had held their horses that day at the jefe-politico’s gate in Las Bocas. When the Three failed to return with Carleton’s horses, that astute person—the “wicked one” of yesterday’s talk—had sent out others. In return for the señorita’s great kindness in saving their lives—but principally, if the truth be known, because they feared to be sent out under convoy of Sliver and Jake—they wished to make grateful return by warning her against these evil ones; these wolves in sheep’s clothing that had slunk into her fold! Followed a recital of their border raids that lost nothing by reason of the details being filled in from imagination! They were terrible hombres! Muy malo! greatly desired by the gringo police for dreadful crimes!
“Don’t you suppose they are lying?” Gordon suggested.
She shook her head. “Their story is too literal. When a peon lies, he goes the limit. Some terrible tale of atrocious murder and torture would be the least; something beyond mere banditry, which is scarcely a crime in their eyes. Then it is corroborated by a lot of little things. You know they were riding my horses yesterday and were differently dressed, yet this man described their horses and clothing as he saw them in Las Bocas, just as they were the first day they came here. And do you remember how they looked at one another yesterday when I said that any of us might have done the same thing?”
Gordon nodded. “They did look queer, and do you recall Bull’s answer? ‘Under the same circumstances, we-all ’u’d expect to hang.’ He spoke so slowly, looking at the others, and they both nodded.”
“Then see how they came here—started up, as it were, out of the ground. In Mexico one doesn’t ask strangers embarrassing questions. It would be like throwing stones at random in a city of glass. But if they stay with you, one generally learns something of their past. But theirs is wrapped in mystery. I know no more of them than on the day they came. It is probably true.”
Her tone was quiet, indeed so casual in its acceptance of the fact that Gordon wondered. In El Paso he had been greatly impressed by the knight-errantry of the Three in espousing the cause of a lonely girl. During the last week he had seen for himself their simplicity of heart, rough kindliness, genuine devotion; and now this land of surprises had confounded him again with its juggler’s changes of good and evil. These kindly fellows were, after all, cattle-rustlers, but one remove from bandits.