“The puma’s done for!” shouted don Carlos, holding up his blood dripping knife. The bandit, writhing at his feet, was uttering snorts of an agony that could only end in death.
Watson had led Celinda a certain distance away so that she should not witness this scene; but he had kept close watch of what was going on, ready to lend help if don Carlos should need it.
The two men helped Celinda to the spot where Watson had left his horse; in their anxiety lest she should see the bandit in his death agony, they almost carried her between them. But still dazed by the rapid succession of events, the girl looked about with vague dilated eyes as though she recognized nothing in her surroundings. Finally she burst into tears, and threw her arms about her father. Then, entirely unmindful of the attitude she maintained towards him when she was quite herself, she threw her arms about Watson, too, and kissed him.
Stirred by her unexpected caress, and distressed by the sight of the scratches and cuts on the girl’s face, Richard asked, anxiously,
“Did I hurt you, Miss Rojas?... But don’t you think I managed a little better with the lariat this time?”
Then the two men helped Celinda get on the horse and walked along beside her to Dead Indian ranch.
At sight of them, Robledo and the commissioner came out with a joyful welcome. In front of the ranch house stood the other men of the expedition, who, after attending in their own way to the wounds of their captives, were keeping watch over them, as well as over Piola. It had been decided to take them all to the jail in the capital of the territory on the very next day.
Meanwhile, Celinda, finding herself once more among friends, who were eagerly expressing their delight at her rescue, began to recover her usual spirits. She tried to hide her face from Watson, so that he shouldn’t see all the cuts that disfigured it; but at the same time she eyed him with a new tenderness.
“Did I really hurt you, ... Celinda?” the youth kept asking in an imploring tone, as though his emotions would not at the moment permit of his saying anything else. “But didn’t I do better with the lassoo? Didn’t I?”
After glancing about to see whether her father were near enough to overhear, she murmured, imitating his foreign accent,