"We understand," Threewit answered. "But I'll just tell you one thing, major. Our friends know where we are, and Uncle Sam has a long arm. It will reach easily to Noche Buena."
"So, señor? Perhaps. Maybe. Who knows? Accidents happen—regrettable ones. A thousand apologies to your Uncle Sam. Oh, yes! Ver' sorry. Too late to mend, but then have we not shot the foolish peon who made the mistake in regard to Señors Farrar and Threewit? Yes, indeed."
Culvera tossed off his genial prophecy with the politest indifference. The prisoners read in his words a threat, sinister and scarcely veiled.
"You're talking murder, which is absurd," answered Threewit. "We've done no harm to you or General Pasquale. We came here by mistake. He'll let us go, of course."
"You sent Yeager down here to spy about those cattle you lost. Now you've come down here buttin' in to see for yourself. I don't expect Pasquale is going to stand for any such thing," broke in Harrison.
Farrar looked the prizefighter straight in the eye.
"You're a liar and you know it, Harrison. Let me tell you something else. You've stood here and cursed Yeager to the limit. Why? Because he's a better man than you are. I don't know just what's happened, but I can see that he has given you the beating of your life. And he did it in fair fight too."
Harrison interrupted with a scream of rage. "I'll cave his head in when we meet sure as he's a foot high."
"No, you won't. He's got your goat. What I've got to say about Yeager is this. If you put over any of your sculduggery on us, he'll wipe you off the map no matter in what lonesome hole you hide. Just stick a pin in that."
The bully moved slowly toward Farrar. His head had sunk down and his shoulders fallen to the gorilla hunch.