"That's not it. Remember the speech she made to us the first day:
"'Keep that in your heathen minds. I'm an American woman, an American woman, remember! That means I am sacred, sacred! If you harm me, if you as much as touch one of my hairs——'"
"But she has only two or three, Gomez!"
"Don't interrupt me—'If you as much as touch one of my hairs, you know what will happen. The American soldiers will come after you. Not the scouts, not the constabulary, but the American soldiers. They will follow you like hounds, ten thousand, a hundred thousand of them, if necessary. They will never let you rest. They will avenge me—well, you know the American soldier, my friends. Don't get him mad. I am the American woman; I am sacred!'"
"But, Gomez; do you think that is all true?"
"It is; I know."
"But, Gomez; the Americans, they are not fools. They can see. They must know that she is old like my grandmother, that she is seven feet tall, that she takes out her teeth at night, that——"
"It doesn't matter; she's an American woman."
"Ah, these Americans; what a singular people!"
A long contemplative silence.