Grant nodded. The other wagged his head in a grotesque mockery of grief.
“‘My daughter and I are entertaining an American gentleman who was wounded on the Hermosillo road,’ your Don answers, civil enough. ‘While he is a guest in our house we naturally ask no questions.’
“‘Then,’ snaps this Urgo boy, ‘I must inform you that for harbouring an escaped criminal you are responsible before the law. The rurales will visit your house and it is for me to say whether they take you as well as the gringo convict.’”
Grant started. Here was a phase of the situation he had not guessed: that his courteous host might be made to suffer for Urgo’s rage and jealousy.
Eagerly, “What did Don Padraic say to that?”
“He says something to the effect that the laws of hospitality were above any this-here Urgo might care to dig up, the same I call being mighty white of your Don Whosis with the Irish twist to his name.” Bim broke off to shoot a quizzical look into his friend’s eyes. “Say, brother, what you been doin’ to this little black-an’-tan stingin’ lizard to make him ride your trail so hard? You a tenderfoot an’ riding your herd across the fence line of the biggest little man in the whole Sonora government!”
Grant grinned childishly. “Well, I threw him out of the front door here this afternoon for one thing and—”
Admiration beamed from every wind wrinkle about the Arizonan’s eyes. “Sho! You did that? Now I call that steppin’ some for a man with a bullet through him. I thought from the gen’ral slant to Señor Urgo’s manner when he met up with us some one’d been working on his frame somewhere. He just sweat T.N.T. But why did you crawl him?”
“He insulted Señorita O’Donoju,” was Grant’s answer. Bim lowered the lid of one eye owlishly and his gaunt face was pulled down to a comic aspect of concern.