Once more her small cool fingers locked with his, and, smiling brightly, she went back to the house, leaving him to resume his guard till the prisoners were taken away by Sliver and Jake.
After they were gone there entered into Gordon’s mind a small doubt. Supposing the raiders talked? Spread their report of the Three through the desert country? It remained, that little doubt, like a thorn in the side till it was drawn by Sliver and Jake when they returned the following night.
“We’d calc’lated to hand ’em over to the vaqueros at Hacienda El Reposo, an’ have them chase ’em beyond their bounds,” Jake explained. “But at the railroad we ran into a Valles colonel that was drumming up recruits. He grabbed ’em offen our hands that quick they hadn’t time to kick.”
“By now,” Sliver added, “they’re three hundred miles south on their way to death an’ glory.”
“But the little girl mustn’t know that,” Bull’s heavy bass rose in caution. “She was that sot on returning ’em to their women and children, it ’u’d half break her heart.”
“Not a whisper,” the two agreed, but Sliver added, with a chuckle, “Alle same, they’ll stay put an’ trouble her no more.”
Inwardly Gordon echoed it, “They’ll trouble you no more.”
While the others were away Bull had also been doing some thinking, and after Gordon went out for his evening stroll through the compound he laid the results before them. “Say, I’ve placed that chap.”
“Which chap?”
“Fellow with the pock-marks. D’you remember the mozo that held our horses at Don Miguel’s gate?”