"What do you do here?" cried this man sharply. "Back, into the coach!"
The American recognized Jacinto Quesada. He tried to fling past him. A huge long-barreled revolver showed in the bandolero's hand.
"Back, you, into your coach!" cried Quesada once again. "And you, you dog of a Frenchman! Quick! enter! or I will shoot you through the fat of your breeches!"
Swiftly the Frenchman went. He dashed after the moving coach, caught up with it and flung himself headlong in upon the floor. Then he pulled himself to his feet again, went over to the open door, and banged it shut.
The American did not budge.
"But the girl!" he shouted. He drove at the bandolero. Quesada dodged his fist. He reversed the revolver in his hand and swiftly crashed it butt-first down upon the American's forehead.
The American reeled back, stunned, falling. Quesada looked down the length of train moving up toward him; he saw another open-doored coach rattling near. Suddenly stooping, he tackled at the legs of the American, lifted him bodily into the air, and flung him back upon the floor of the open, moving coach. The American never knew how he boarded that train no more than he would had he been a soulless sack of barley!
All over sweat and panting deeply, Jacinto Quesada turned to Felicidad.
"Come; I must take you with me," he said to her, "to my mother in Minas de la Sierra. We will send back the purse to your father. We will tell him the true story of events. Depend upon it, my Felicidad, he will forgive you, he will relent. Until he does that, however, my mother will take care of you, and I will be your guardian angel, besides." He could not prevent a smile. And he added, "A sinful and thieving sort of guardian angel, but one strong to protect you, you may be sure of that! Come! Up on my horse!"
He swung her up upon his Manchegan pony. Before her, he mounted. He dug his heels in the pony's sleek mouse-colored barrel. They started away.