The rancher attempted to follow him and brought up short against the man who checked Watson. His rifle in position, he kept it pointed at both men, and they were constrained to stand motionless while they inwardly debated the question as to whether to yield to the menace of the gun muzzle, or throw themselves upon the bandit.
With a blow, Piola knocked down the poorly joined planks with which the door was patched, and came upon Manos Duras just at the moment when the latter had reached the conclusion that his struggles with Celinda were going to cost him too many scratches. The girl, in spite of the fact that her hands were still bound, was defending herself with the ferocity of a small tiger against the gaucho’s attacks. She had torn his flesh with her nails, bitten and kicked him. His face in several places dripped blood, but such was his state of excitement that he was unaware of more than a few of his wounds.
At sight of his comrade he tried to regain something of his customary composure, and addressed him with fierce joviality.
“What did I tell you, brother? A fellow begins by playing and before he knows it he loses his head, with a girl like that....”
But he became silent when he saw how Piola was looking at him.
“So, you’re playing in here like a green school boy! It doesn’t matter to you what happens outside, does it?”
He motioned his leader towards the door, and once on the other side of the threshold, he went on in a low tone,
“Old man Rojas is here with one of the gringos from the dam. What are we going to do?”
Manos Duras, in spite of his customary cynicism, was taken aback at the news that only a few crumbling adobe walls separated him from Celinda’s father. How had he arrived there so soon? Who could have revealed to him the whereabouts of his kidnapped daughter? Then his native ferocity, pricked by the memory of the insult done him, awoke to provide him with a solution to the problem confronting him.
“Why not kill him?”