Demetrio and Camilla brought up the rear. She was still nervous, white-lipped and parched; he was angry at their futile maneuver. For there had been battles, no followers of Orozco's to be seen. A handful of Federals, routed. A poor devil of a priest left dangling from a mesquite; a few dead, scattered over the field, who had once been united under the archaic slogan, RIGHTS AND RELIGION, with, on their breasts, the red cloth insignia: Halt! The Sacred Heart of Jesus is with me!
"One good thing about it is that I've collected all my back pay," Quail said, exhibiting some gold watches and rings stolen from the priest's house.
"It's fun fighting this way," Manteca cried, spicing every other word with an oath. "You know why the hell you're risking your hide."
In the same hand with which he held the reins, he clutched a shining ornament that he had torn from one of the holy statues.
After Quail, an expert in such matters, had examined Manteca's treasure covetously, he uttered a solemn guffaw.
"Hell, Your ornament is nothing but tin!"
"Why in hell are you hanging on to that poison?" Pancracio asked Blondie who appeared dragging a prisoner.
"Do you want to know why? Because it's a long time since I've had a good look at a man's face when a rope tightens around his neck!"
The fat prisoner breathed with difficulty as he followed Blondie on foot; his face was sunburnt, his eyes red; his forehead beaded with sweat, his wrists tightly bound together.
"Here, Anastasio, lend me your lasso. Mine's not strong enough; this bird will bust it. No, by God, I've changed my mind, friend Federal: think I'll kill you on the spot, because you are pulling too hard. Look, all the mesquites are still a long way off and there are no telegraph poles to hang you to!"