"The time has come to teach these Yankees who are masters of this country," Roberto said, turning to his father in fury. "Why will you temporize with them, permit them to throw insult and defiance in your face? Give me permission and I will find a way to make this man answer, and answer with respect."
"Peace!" Don Abrahan commanded, yet with more admiration than severity. "There is a way; in due time it will be seen. Toberman, the iron hand of the law is over you; it must not, it shall not, be defied. I will give you until mid-day tomorrow to produce this fugitive. Go about the business immediately."
"Don Abrahan, you have no right to come into my house with such commands!" Helena protested.
"Garvanza, ever since the new governor has been established in the pueblo, with the thieves and off-scourings of the Mexican prisons in his military force, you've swelled up like a toad," Toberman said. He moved forward a step as he spoke, his hand lifted, pointed finger driving his words into the magistrate's face. "I'm not taking orders from the governor, I'm not taking orders from you. I get my orders from this little lady right here, and from nobody else."
Toberman glared around as he pronounced this defiance of the constituted authorities, hands back again on his hips in convenient reach of his pistols, a fearless man who had passed through many conflicts, to whom the imminence of another was nothing but an incident in his day.
"Don Abrahan, I will pay you what this fugitive owes you, according to your own reckoning of it," Helena offered, drawing a little closer to the magistrate, closing the little group in the wide, low-walled hall. It seemed as if defiance and appeal pressed upon Don Abrahan in the same breath.
"It cannot be permitted," Don Abrahan replied.
He retreated a step from her advance, from her white arm outstretched in supplication for permission to do this humane service.
"He is a stranger, far from home, without money, without friends," she pleaded. "I will pay it in his name—seven times the amount, Don Abrahan, if you demand it."
"It cannot be adjusted in this manner," Don Abrahan refused. "Prepare quarters in this house for me and my son," he directed, turning gruffly to Doña Carlota.