"Sure, senor Purdee!" Del Pinzo spoke fairly good English, and he could be polite when it suited him. "We saw that some one was encamped in the rocks, and I took them for the Yaquis. So we opened fire—it is with sadness that I know now it was your friends whom I shot at."
"Um! Maybe so—maybe not," grimly retorted the cowboy. "Anyhow it's us, and it seems to be you. I thought you were somewhere else," he added referring to the fact that Del Pinzo had been arrested. It was not the first time the half breed had been in the toils of the law, following cattle raids on Diamond X or other ranches.
In the previous books of this series I have related some of Del Pinzo's outrages. He was concerned in the water fight that so nearly ended disastrously for Bud and his cousins.
"Oh, I get out!" said Del Pinzo, easily, and with a shrug of his shoulders which might mean that coming forth from a jail was nothing in his life.
"So I see," observed Snake with a grin. "By hook or crook, I reckon. Well, I don't know as we have anything against you and your bunch just at present. If you're after the Yaquis you're on the same errand as us. But, if you'll excuse me sayin' so, I'd rather travel my own road."
This was a delicate hint to which Del Pinzo was not oblivious.
"Surely, senor," he answered, grinning. "You go your way and I go mine. Only let the fighting cease. As you say—there is nothing against me—now."
"Which isn't saying that there won't be, or hasn't been," spoke Snake. "File out your men—without guns, you understand!" he snapped. "And then you can hit your own trail. Looks like there'd been a mistake all round. We thought you the Yaquis."
"Oh, Senor Purdee!" There was false injury in the tones.
"And I'm not so sure but what it will turn out that way in the end," added the cowboy grimly. "However, we'll give the benefit of the doubt for the time being. File out!"