"Floyd! Don't!" she cried.
"Don't what?"
"Don't shoot? Oh, we haven't a chance! If we do kill—or wound a few—it will only make it worse for us. Don't shoot!"
Rosemary spoke only just in time, for Floyd was already raising the weapon to aim at the leader who had spurred out of the ruck of other yelling Yaquis.
And, as if this leader sensed what was about to happen, and had decided to administer a lesson, there was a sharp crack from his side. He had not raised his hand higher than his saddle pommel, but Floyd's hat spun from his head and went sailing to the ground. At the same time he heard a vicious "zing" which told of a bullet in flight.
"Floyd!" screamed Rosemary.
"I'm all right! He's bluffing!" her brother answered. But he did not shoot back.
This Yaqui, better dressed and mounted, but more evil in face than any of his band, smiled grimly as he jammed his gun back into the holster. And Floyd had the sense to return his weapon. As Rosemary had said, there was grave danger in firing, for at best only a few of the Yaquis could have been disposed of, and the others would have taken a terrible revenge.
Right up to the stalled car—stalled because it had lurched to one side in the ditch—rode the yelling Yaquis. Some of them got in the path of the evident leader, but he bumped them to one side with his horse—a more powerful animal than any ridden by his followers—shouting at them in vigorous Spanish as he knocked them out of his way.
"La Paz! La Paz!" is what Rosemary and Floyd heard shouted at the leader, and this they took to be his name, or, at least, his title. From then on they referred to him as "Paz," which was as good an appellation as any.