While the horses slid and slipped down the steep trail his voice rose
above the scrape of hoofs, laying out his plan. After their long march
the raiders would undoubtedly camp at Arboles! The fire proved one
thing--they had broken open the store and drunk up the stock of
_aguardiente_! At dawn they would be found stretched in swinish sleep.
And then--
His surmise was reasonable, founded on probabilities, but subject to the
change of circumstance. As they rode on down a red glow in the black
bowels of the ravine grew into a fire that dyed a deeper chrome the
yellow walls of the _fonda_. It also restored a little color into the
bronze faces of a score of refugees from Arboles, women and children,
herded together like sheep around its blaze.
When Lee rode into the firelight they gave tongue in a chorus of joy,
apprehension, every shade of feeling from fear to relief. From their
babble she gathered, first, that they had been warned by a _peon_ who
had run in from Lovell's _rancho_; second, that the _ancianos_ had
driven the horses into the mountain pasture and scattered the cattle
among the ravines. Finally, from out of their midst a lad was thrust
forward to tell his tale.
He had been sent to hunt stragglers from the herds. Feeling tired, with
that _peon_ indolence which is not to be disturbed by mere rumors of
raiders, he had curled up in a bunch of chaparral and gone to sleep.
Awakened by voices, he had seen the raiders coming. Men of gigantic
stature and evil visage his excited fancy painted them, and among them
he recognized a _peon_ who had run away to the wars after being whipped
for some grossness by the señor Benson. So close did they pass, he heard
them quarreling among themselves. They appeared to be tired and downcast
over their poor luck in obtaining horses; and he, the boy, heard the
renegade's expressions of reassurance.
"Si, señores. A few miles more and you will rest with the women at Los
Arboles. There we shall find the finest horses, bred by blooded
stallions, fit for a general to ride. Or if they have run them away for
safe-keeping, 'twill not serve, for I, Pedro Gonzales, know the secret
pasture in the great Bowl."
Flaming up under fresh fuel while the lad talked, the firelight showed
the Three deep in reflection. The same thought was in their minds: a
vivid mental picture of the raiders from Las Bocas ascending the
precarious zigzags of the Bowl staircase. If these others could be
caught in the same way? Jake's remark expressed their joint conclusion.
"It 'u'd be a _cinch_!"
"Horses all tired out now, too," Sliver added. "If anythin' went wrong,
we'd have no getaway. Not that I'd care, but we kain't take no chances
with Lady-girl."
Bull's word decided. He made his dispositions, sent the youth to sleep
out on the plains and bring early warning of the raiders' movements;
posted other sentries at intervals. Finally, he saw first to the horses,
that they were watered and fed and groomed; then to the serving of a
meal.
He ate, but even his steady, methodical munching bespoke purpose, the
conserving of strength for his ends. As he sat, after the meal, gazing
into the fire, even Lee failed to discern much difference from his usual
self. But after the others, refugees and all, lay wrapped in their
serapes, dim, muffled figures under the red light of half a dozen fires,
he still sat, a somber figure in black outline against the glow.
After Lee had cried herself to sleep he sat on. At midnight her
awakening eyes showed him still there. When she awoke again he was
gone--on the round of sentries. He returned before she fell asleep again
and sat on, staring into the fire, an ominous figure fraught with
danger.