"It's jest a scrape," grunted the bushwhacker. "Mought'a'been worse."
"It was bad generalship trying to save you. We nearly paid high for it."
"That's so. Cost four greasers, as 'twas. Well, I'm worth four greasers."
"You're a devil of a fighter," continued the Lieutenant, surveying the ferocious face and sullen air of the cutthroat with a soldier's admiration for whatever expresses pugnacity.
"Bet yer pile on it," returned Texas, calmly conscious of his character. "So be you."
The savage black eyes and the imperious blue ones stared into each other without the least flinching and with something like friendliness.
Coronado rode up to the pair and asked, "Is that boy alive yet?"
"It's about time for him to flop round," replied Texas indifferently. "Reckon you'll find him in the off hind wagon. I shoved him in thar."
Coronado cantered to the off hind wagon, peeped through the rear opening of its canvas cover, discovered the youth lying on a pile of luggage, addressed him in Spanish, and learned his story. He belonged to a hacienda in Bernalillo, a hundred miles or more west of Santa Fé. The Apaches had surprised the hacienda and plundered it, carrying him off because, having formerly been a captive among them, he could speak their language, manage the bow, etc.
For all this Coronado cared nothing; he wanted to know why the band had left Bernalillo; also why it had attacked his train. The boy explained that the raiders had been driven off the southern route by a party of United States cavalry, and that, having lost a number of their braves in the fight, they had sworn vengeance on Americans.