"I'm out of a job—thought maybe you could give me something to do. I met Tom Neal. He figured you might."
"In the army? Do you want to fight?"
Pasquale leaned back in his chair and looked at his guest from narrowed eyes that expressed intelligent energy and brutality. He was smiling, but there was something menacing even about his smile. It struck Steve that he was as simple, as natural, and about as humane as a wolf. He was not tall, but there was unusual breadth and depth to his shoulders. Something of the Indian was in the high cheekbones of his rough, unshaven, coffee-colored face. The old ruffian looked what he was, a terrible man, one who could brush out a human life as lightly as he did the ash from his cigar.
"I don't know. Perhaps. Can you give me a commission?"
"Hmp!" The beadlike eyes of the bandit took in shrewdly the competence of this quiet, brown-faced man. He might be a thief and a murderer,—very likely was since he had crossed the border to join the insurgents,—but it was a safe bet that he had the fighting edge. Men of this particular stripe were needed to lick his tattered, nondescript recruits into shape. "Where you from? Who knows you?"
Culvera slewed round in his seat and glanced at the man standing behind his chair. The indifference did not fade out of his eyes.
"I've been with the Lunar Film Company. Before that I was riding for the Lone Star cattle outfit," answered Yeager.
The younger Mexican showed a flicker of interest. "The Lunar Film Company? Do you know a man named Harrison, señor?"
"Yes."
"And a boy named Pheelip Seymour?"