"Talk big, little hombre, while you can! And now let me tell you something: To-night, right now, inside ten minutes, you're going to tell me just exactly where you got that stuff you spilled out of your pocket last night. And in the morning, bright and early, you're going to take me there!"
"I die firs'!"
"You'll be a long time dying! Think I'm fool enough to kill you ... now? Know what the third degree is, Joe?" Taggart's voice was terrible with its insinuation. "Me, when I give the third degree to any man, he spills his guts before I'm done with him! You'll cough up everything you know and be damn glad afterward to crawl off in the woods and die! That's me, Joe."
Gallup, who must have found amusement in watching Mexicali Joe's expression, laughed. After him Cliff Shipton laughed like an echo. Joe began cursing nervously.
"Ready?" whispered Lynette. Taggart's threats horrified her and set her trembling.
"No!... Don't you see? Taggart will make him tell everything he knows, if he has to knock his teeth out one by one and break every bone in his body! And I'm going to hear!... You crawl ahead while there's a chance; I can up and run for it after you if I have to."
She was silent. There was excitement in his utterance and another quality which sent a sudden chill to her heart. She stared at him through the dark as at a stranger; the gold fever was rampant in his veins, and she knew that he would lie here, never lifting hand or voice, while Taggart tortured his captive until Joe shrieked out his golden secret.
Before Lynette could speak or move, Taggart's voice once more cut harshly through the silence.
"You wouldn't know, Joe, unless you'd been sheriff as long as me, how many nice little ways there are of making a man hurry up about spitting up all he knows!" Taggart was steadily cramming into his mouth the half-cooked dried beef stew, appearing to have entirely forgotten his dislike for garlic. "Me, I'm a man of brains and what you call invention; I look around and see what I've got handy, and out of it I make what I need! Now, look here. You see us boys eating hearty, and, if I know what that look means in a man's eye, you got an appetite yourself? Well, you don't get a scrap to eat nor a drink to drink until you open up."
Joe sought to laugh at him. Taggart, still stuffing, went on steadily: