Mex stood behind the captain while he sat fumbling over a timeworn manuscript, peering at its hieroglyphics in the dim light of the candle. Cacosotte, yawning, rubbed his one eye, and groped his way to a slumber-rug in "Heaven." Then Mex put her brown hand timidly on the shoulder of Palafox.
"One in woods—not nab—no! no!" she said, shaking her head violently and frowning.
"What you jabbering about now? Don't you see I'm busy?"
"Woman through window—not big Mex—look so!"
She wrinkled her features, and shrank down mimicking a dwarf. The robber now understanding her speech and pantomime, slapped his thigh, guffawed exasperatingly, and, roughly pushing the jealous barbarian aside, "No, Mex, she don't look like that. Tall, white as your teeth, smooth and purty as an antelope——"
"Mex purtier. Mex not Choctaw—Castiliano. Look blood." She nipped her forearm with sharp teeth, and crimson drops oozed.
Palafox laughed.
The mane shook, and the wild eyes glared behind the half-drunken man, who continued to fumble his papers. Before long his hand fell heavily, his eyes closed, and he slept. Mex shook him by the shoulders. Partially aroused, he looked up, thrust the papers and the wallet deep within a breast pocket, quitted the bench, and lay down on a pallet in the corner of the room. Mechanically he deposited a primed pistol under his blanket, ready to hand. Soon he was snoring.
An hour went by. The new recruit had not returned. Mex scarcely kept her eyes open where she crouched, Indian fashion, on a buffalo robe, behind the bar. Nine Eyes had bolted the outer door before retiring. Eleven o'clock; the white owls were at their boldest, hooting lugubrious serenades to the answering wolves. Pepillo was at the cabin door, trying the latch. Mex heard the sound, got up, and unfastened the bolts.
"Sh!" said she, and giving him the candle, pointed to the back room; then drowsily resumed her nest on the buffalo robe. Pepillo took the feeble light; nodded, but did not immediately follow directions. He set the candle down upon the floor in front of the bar, so that its faint flicker, unobserved by the woman, made objects barely visible in the room. This done, he shuffled his feet slightly to apprise the half-conscious guardian of the ominous house that he was obeying her orders, and vanished in the rear darkness. The dead hush of sleep now reigned over the place. So it seemed, but the stealthy Pepillo was wide awake. He remained motionless, breathless, hidden in the gloom of the second cabin. At length he reappeared, took up the candle, stood awhile listening, then moved cautiously to the edge of the counter, behind which the woman slept in her lair. He peeped over to assure himself of her complete somnolence. Satisfied that Mex would not likely be roused by any slight disturbance, he stole to the front door and undid the fastenings so softly that not a creak of the bolt sliding from its staple was heard even by his own quick ear. But when he swung the door open, providing for his ready escape, the hinges gave out a complaining sigh. The sound was faint, but it startled Mex. She raised her drowsy head, and through the mass of sable hair tangling over her half-open eyes, peered out from behind the shelter of the bar. Pepillo had drawn a poignard and was tip-toeing toward the sleeping captain. Mex gave a catamount cry. Palafox started up, pistol in hand, none too soon to avoid the deadly blade of the assassin. "Palafox!" This one word was all Pepillo uttered. In the act of springing to stab, he leaped to his own death, shot through the head. As he fell, the poignard, escaping his relaxed grasp, rang on the floor. Mex, who tiger-like had sprung from her covert, snatched up the shiny weapon, and fiercely stabbed it into Pepillo's lifeless breast.