“But I thought—was it not the agent at the station who said they had no money?”
“Neither had they.” It was always difficult to read the massive face, but now it expressed just a shade of malicious amusement. “I have lent them fifty thousand pesos.”
“Thou!” For once the man’s usual cynical calm was completely disrupted. In his vast astonishment he whispered it: “Thou? Fifty thousand pesos?”
“Yo.” Smiling slightly, he went on: “Now listen, Sebastien. Not to mention thy little attempt on their virtue, this is the third on their lives, and all badly bungled. So do not wonder that I thought it time to take them into my own hand. Now that they are there, let there be no mistake—the meddling finger is likely to be badly pinched. From this time—they are mine.”
“But—why give them money?”
“To forestall others.” Had he been there to hear, the following words would fully have answered Seyd’s question. “The elder of these lads is no common man. By hook or by crook he would have raised a company—if he had to rope and tie down his men on the run. Then, instead of these two, we should have a dozen gringos, with Porfirio and his rurales to back up their charter. But do not fear.”
From the cleared fields through which they were riding it was possible to see Santa Gertrudis, and, turning in his saddle, he extended his quirt toward its green scar.
“Do not fear.”