Chapter Fifty Seven.
A Cumbersome Captive.
Having made prisoner of the peon, and drawn out of him all he is able to tell, his captors have a difficulty in deciding what to do with him. It will hamper them to take him along. Still they cannot leave him behind; and the young Kentuckian is not cruel enough to kill him, though convinced of his deserving death.
If left to himself, Walt might settle the question quickly. Indignant at the Indian’s treason, he has now a new reason to dislike him—as a rival.
With the ex-Ranger this last weighs little. He is sure of having the affections of Conchita. He has her heart, with the promise of her hand, and in his own confiding simplicity has no fear of failure in that sense—not a pang of jealousy. The idea of having for a rival the abject creature at his feet, whom he could crush out of existence with the heel of his horseskin boot, is too ridiculous for him to entertain. He can laugh it to scorn.
Not for that would he now put an end to the man’s life, but solely from a sense of outraged justice, with the rough-and-ready retribution to which, as a Texan Ranger, he has been accustomed.
His comrade, less prone to acts of high-handed punishment, restrains him; and the two stand considering what they are to do with their prisoner, now proving so inconvenient.
While still undecided a sound reaches their ears causing them to start and turn pale. It is the trampling of horses; there can be no mistaking it for aught else. And many of them; not two or three, or half a dozen, but a whole troop.
Uraga and his lancers have re-entered the valley! They are riding up to the ranche! What but this can it be? No other party of horsemen could be expected in that place.