"I've just met him. He doesn't work for the company."
Culvera turned to his chief. "It is this Pheelip that shot Mendoza, he and another Gringo."
Pasquale nodded, still watching Yeager.
"Know any military tactics?" he asked.
"None—except to hit the other fellow first and hit him hardest."
"And to hit him when he isn't looking. Those three things are all there is to know about war—those three, and to keep your men fat." Pasquale's momentary grin faded. "I'll give you a try-out for a week. If we like each other we'll talk turkey about a commission. Eh, señor?"
"Go you one. If we ain't suited we part company at the end of a week."
The noted insurgent leader spoke English as well as he did Spanish. Sometimes he talked in one language, sometimes in the other. Now he relapsed into Spanish and asked Yeager to join them at breakfast.
The cowpuncher sat down promptly. It had been three hours since he had eaten lightly and he was as hungry as a Yukon husky. He observed that Culvera's table manners were nice and particular, whereas those of his chief, though they ate off silver taken from the home of a Federal supporter during a raid, were uncouth in the extreme. He wolfed his food, throwing it into his mouth from knife or fork as rapidly as he could.
Glancing up from his steak, Steve observed the brooding eye of Culvera upon him. Faint suspicions, recollections too vague as yet for definiteness, were beginning to stir in the mind of the man. He had taken on the look of wariness, masked by a surface smile, that his face had worn the night of the shooting.