“Now, then! Run them down!” Seyd shouted; but as he swung his mule out to go by the burros he almost ran into a horseman who had just reined his beast to one side of the trail.
“It is you, señor?”
Here on the top the light of the stars helped out the weak moon, and, though the man’s face was in shadow, Seyd recognized the upright, graceful figure. “Come to see if the job is done.” He thought it while answering aloud, “As you perceive, señor.”
“Not until long after you left did I hear of the break in the trail, and I have ridden hard—used up one horse and half killed this poor beast. But no matter so long as I am in time.”
“Hypocrite!” Seyd thought again. A little nonplussed, however, by the tone of assurance, he gave his thought lighter expression. “You would not have been if these fellows had had their way.”
“Caramba, señor! Why?”
If his surprise were assumed it was certainly remarkably well done. While Seyd was telling of their narrow escape he sat his horse, silent but attentive. With the last word he burst into a fury of action. Uttering a Spanish oath, he drove in the spurs and rode his rearing horse straight at the mule-drivers, who had turned on Billy with drawn knives, lashing them with his heavy quirt over face, head, shoulders. Five minutes later his whip was still cutting the air with a shrill whistle, and, richly as the fellows deserved it, Seyd and Billy shuddered at the pitiless flogging. Strangest to them of all, the men endured this without attempt at flight or resistance. They stood, their arms shielding their faces, whimpering like beaten hounds.
It was their abject submissiveness that injected a touch of doubt into Billy’s comment. “It looks, after all, as though they had done it themselves.”
Seyd shrugged. “Perhaps; in any case we have no proof.”