Once inside the gate, they surrounded him, begging “Aw, let us at ’em.”
“No!” snorted Jack. “I’m not leading any moving-picture-show charge. It’d be nice for all of us to get killed, ’cept that after that the insurrectos could do anything they wanted to. And they’d kill us, all right. They’re fifty to fifteen. And they ain’t fakers—they’re Welch’s Terrors—all of them horse-thieves or murderers, and all of them can ride. Ready now; they’ll be shelling us with our own machine-gun. Or no—they didn’t get the shells! Hurray, we surprised them before they could take anything but the gun! Who gave that quick alarm? Whoever did—”
“It was Mr. Griffin,” said the man who had been on guard at the east gate.
“Great! Hike,” declared the Lieutenant. “You saved us from losing shells, and all—if it hadn’t been for that alarm we’d be getting our own shells, right now.”
“Please,” said a greaser, “I shoot Pedro—he let in the insurrectos.”
“All right—bury him to-morrow,” said Adeler.
That was the end of the traitor.... Hike had seen him, cold and stiff, lying by the south gate, as they charged back into the ranch-yard. He felt that Pedro’s death had been necessary, but it gave him a feeling of cold horror, just the same.... Pedro had been such a cheerful handsome Mexican, so much alive, waving his hands, laughing with dark, beautiful eyes, twisting his neat mustache, just a few hours earlier. He laid up that death not to Pedro but to Welch, and Welch’s men, who had tempted Pedro; and he wanted to see this band of robbers ended, now and here.
“Lieutenant,” he said, “let me fly over to Torreas in the Hustle and get another machine-gun. We can surprise the greasers with it, and end this.”
“I wish you could, old Hike,” mourned the Lieutenant, “but there’s less than a quart of gasoline on the place. Barry is bringing some more, on a pack mule, and if he gets through the line of the insurrectos— Anyway, let’s wait till to-morrow, and see what we can do.”
Hike feared that Jack Adeler meant Barry was not very likely to get through; but he said nothing.