The others, nothing loath, followed his example, until the whole troop had pulled up within less than three hundred yards of the muzzles of our guns!
“Cowed, by God!” shouted Rube, with a derisive laugh, “Hulloo!” continued he, raising his voice still louder, and addressing the halted line: “what do ee want anyhow? Why the hell don’t ee come on?”
Whether Rube’s comical interrogatory was understood or not, it elicited a reply:—
“Amigos! somos amigos!” (We are friends!) shouted back the leader of the band.
“Friends, be damned!” exclaimed the trapper, who knew enough of Spanish to understand the signification of amigos. “Nice friends, you, i’deed! Wagh! D’yur think to bamfoozle us thet-away? Keep yur distance now!” continued he, raising his rifle in a threatening manner, as a movement was perceptible among the horsemen. “Keep yur distance, or, by the ’tarnal airthquake! I’ll plug the fust o’ ye thet rides within reach. Damn sich friends as you!”
The leader now conversed in a low tone with his lieutenant, and some new design seemed to be discussed between them. A change of tactics was evidently devised during this pause in the action.
After a while the chief again addressed us, speaking as before in Spanish.
“We are friends!” said he: “we mean you no harm. To prove it, I shall order my men to fall back upon the prairie, while my lieutenant, unarmed, will meet one of you on the neutral ground. Surely, you can have no objection to that?”
“And why such an arrangement?” inquired Garey, who spoke Spanish fluently. “We want nothing of you. What do you want from us, with all this infernal fuss?”
“I have business with you,” replied the Mexican; “and you, sir, in particular. I have something to say to you I don’t wish others to hear.”