“That’s right, Hashknife. We’ve got to get you cured up, even if the pretty girls do show up to take my mind off yore aches.”
They led their horses back to the street through the alley between the stage station and the post-office. Torres was standing between them and the door of the post-office, looking intently at the door. He did not hear the two men and horses come out of the alley.
Three riders were coming in from the east, their horses drifting along slowly. Then the post-office door opened and Wanna came out, followed closely by Lucy. With an exaggerated bow, Torres swept off his sombrero. Lucy grasped Wanna by the arm, as if to turn her in the opposite direction, but Torres stepped in quickly and spoke to them.
His attitude was entirely apologetic, but his words were probably not, judging from the expression on the old squaw’s face. Hashknife dropped his reins, and in three long strides had reached Torres. His right hand caught the slack seat of Torres’ trousers, while his left twisted into the gorgeous silk muffler.
Torres ripped out an expressive Spanish oath, as his hands tried to draw a weapon, but Hashknife swung him aloft, whirled on his heels and fairly ran to the blacksmith shop, a short distance away, where the worthy smith was fitting shoes on a bad horse, and dumped the luckless Mexican headfirst into a very dirty slack tub.
This tub was made from a half-barrel, and was nearly full of inky water. The three riders whirled their horses up to the front of the shop and fairly fell out of their saddles. Sleepy had dropped the two sets of reins and was at the door of the shop ahead of the three men, as if to stop them from any interference.
The immersion of Torres seemed of great satisfaction to the blacksmith, whose buffalo-horn-like mustaches jiggled convulsively in a paroxysm of silent mirth. Hashknife knew just about how long a human being might safely be immersed; so he kept Torres under for the full limit, while the three riders, blocked from an entrance by Sleepy, who was willing to forego the pleasure of watching the ducking to prevent interference, grinned widely.
Torres was far from being gaudy when Hashknife drew him out, half-drowned, and sat him against the forge to recover. Several other men, attracted by those at the entrance, came to see what was going on. Faro Lanning was one of these.
Torres’ chin, which dripped dirty water and iron particles, was buried in the bosom of a once-ornate silk shirt, but now a dirty brown, as he wheezed audibly to draw air into his lungs. He was far from dead, but too watersoaked to care what went on around him.
Hashknife walked back to the door. The three riders looked him over critically, but said nothing.