The unexpected closing of the conference elicited an angry shout from the Mexican horsemen; and, without waiting for orders, they galloped up to their chief.
Halting at long-range, they fired their carbines and escopettes; but their bullets cut the grass far in front of us, and one or two that hurtled past were wide of the mark.
The lieutenant, who had been only stunned, soon recovered his legs, but not his temper. His wrath overbalanced his prudence, else the moment he found his feet he would have made the best of his way to his horse and comrades.
Instead of doing so, he turned full front towards us, raised his arm in the air, shook his clenched fist in a menacing manner, accompanying the action with a torrent of defiant speech.
Of what he said, we understood but the concluding phrase, and that was the bitter and blasphemous carajo! that hissed through his teeth with the energetic aspiration of rage and revenge.
That oath was the last word he ever uttered; his parting breath scarcely carried it from his lips ere he ceased to live. I heard the fierce word, and almost simultaneously the crack of a rifle, fired close to my ear. I saw the dust puff out from the embroidered spencer of the Mexican, and directly over his heart; I saw his hand pass rapidly to the spot, and the next moment I saw him fall forward upon his face!
Without a groan, without a struggle, he lay as he had fallen, spread, dead, and motionless upon the prairie!
“Thur now, an damn yur carajo!” cried a voice at my shoulder; “ee won’t bid for me agin, ye skunk—thet yur won’t!”
Though I turned involuntarily to the speaker it was not for an explanation. Of course, it was Rube who spoke. His rifle was smoking at the muzzle, and he was proceeding to reload it.
“Wa-hoo—woop!” continued he, uttering his wild war-cry; “thet shortens thur count, I reck’n. Another nick for Targuts! Gi’ me her for a gun. Wagh! a long pull it wur for the ole weepun; an the glint in my eyes too! The niggur riled me, or I wudn’t a risked it. Hold yur hosses, boys!” he continued in a more earnest tone: “don’t fire till I’m loaded—for yur lives, don’t!”