WHEREIN A MAN PROVES HIMSELF A CRAVEN, A SHOT RINGS OUT, AND THE BAD MAN
EXPLAINS ONE LITTLE HOUR
A heavy silence fell upon the men who were left in the room. The bandit,
unconcerned, puffed his cigarette. Hardy and Pell felt like rats in a trap.
Only Uncle Henry was passive. In the tense stillness, the clock could be
heard ticking on and on. Pell was beginning to crack beneath the strain.
Suddenly he began to pace the floor, his hands behind his back. No tiger in
a cage was ever more impatient in his captivity.
"If you want money," he finally got out, "for heaven's sake, tell me how
much, and ..."
Lopez quickly interrupted him. His fury boiled over at the insinuation. "Be
still!" he cried. "You will please be quiet. I 'ave business to sink out
which are 'ard."
Pell was equally angry. "Why, damn you ..." he sputtered.
He should have known better. Coldly Lopez took him in. "I 'ave been patient
wiz you--too patient. I see zat now." The other returned his keen gaze, and
for an instant he did not quail; but finally he could stand the strain no
longer. His eyes fell away, and for the first time in all their bitter
encounter he felt himself sinking. A terrible uncertainty came over him.
This Mexican, this beast, was going to do something desperate. There was
not the shadow of a doubt about that. He must go carefully: he must not
lose his self-control. To do so would be madness.
Luckily, Uncle Henry broke the tension just then: "Am I going to get my
money back?" he cried out. And his chair projected itself into their midst.
Lopez faced Hardy, across the table. "Señor Loan Fish," he said, "if my
frand, 'e pay you ze money, zen ze rancho belong to him?"
"If he pays me before eight o'clock," the other replied promptly.
"Señor Wall Street," the bandit now addressed Pell, "you 'ave ten sousand
dollar. I want it."
Pell was amazed. "But I--"
Lopez snapped his fingers. Pedro, who came back at that very moment, took
the money from Pell, and watched his master closely for further
instructions as to what to do. Lopez nodded toward Smith.
"For 'im," he said.
"For me?" cried Uncle Henry, joyfully.
"I must make my frand 'appy," the bandit said. Pedro gave the money to
Uncle Henry. The latter grabbed it as a child might have grabbed a cooky.
Lopez turned to Pell. "Now--you is rob." To Hardy he said: "You is paid,"
and to Uncle Henry, "An' you get your money back. _Bueno!_ Ees finish."
Pell was cynical. "I'll say that's service," he murmured; and a sardonic
grin came to his thin lips. Perhaps the bandit was joking, after all. But
damn these jokes that kept one in long after school!
Uncle Henry, however, had a strange apprehension, and wheeled about, facing
Lopez.
"You ain't goin' to take it back from me, are you?" he inquired.
"No, Ooncle Hennery," the bandit laughed, "she is yours for keeps. Zat is
all. You may go!" And he waved him out. "And you," to Hardy. "Pedro, show
zem into ze open space!"
"'Im too?" asked Pedro, indicating Morgan Pell who stood, as though made of
stone, in one corner.
"_Poco tiempo!_" the bandit said.
"_Debommultalo!_" his henchman replied.
"_Si_," Lopez smiled. And Pedro got the invalid and the lanky Hardy through
the door, as a woman might have swept two geese from her path.
Left alone with the bandit, Pell remarked:
"Look here, there must be some way to settle this thing." But he had grave
fears.
"To zat, I 'ave come at last," the bandit replied with an emphasis that
could not be mistaken.
"You have?" Pell's voice was weak.
"It shall cost me planty money. I could 'ave tooken you wiz me for
ransom--'elluva big ransom--a million dollar, mebbe. But I am not soddid!"
He laughed, and rubbed his hands together.
"You aren't going to hold me for ransom?" Pell questioned, relief in his
voice.
"No."
"What--what are you doing to do?"
The reply was as swift as an arrow. "Kill you."
Pell did not believe what he heard.
"Kill me?" he repeated, his head on one side, like a bird listening, and
pointing to his chest.
"_Si._" Lopez had never used a politer tone.
"You--you're joking." There was a crack in Pell's voice.
"Joking?"
"You must be!" huskily. "I thought so all along--now I'm sure of it."
The bandit faced him, and threw his cigarette over his shoulder in the
chimney-place. "Do I look like a joker?"
"You sit there, like that, and talk of killing me in cold blood?"
Lopez took him in through half-closed lids. "I do not like you. Nobody like
you. Alive, you are no good. Dead, you make two people which I love 'appy.
You get me, Señor Wall Street?"
"Oh, I see," cried Pell, wildly, and doing his best to keep his legs from
giving way, "you would kill me so that my wife can marry this Gilbert
Jones?" A sickly smile curled around his mouth.
Lopez nodded. "_Si, señor._"
"If that's all, I'll give her a divorce!"
"You weel give her a divorce?" Lopez repeated, pretending to be much
interested and pleased.
Pell saw a gleam of hope through the darkness of this moment. "Yes," came
breathlessly from him. "Then she can marry him. Don't you see? If that's
all you want--he can have her." He was shaking now in every limb. Escape
was almost his. He knew he could not be done away with. "I'll give her to
him!" He staggered toward Lopez, "I will! I swear I will!" he screamed, his
words reaching a high falsetto.
Lopez rose. "I would look at you once before I shoot," he said slowly, and
took in the other's cringing form.
"What?" Pell said.
Disgust was on the features of the bandit--contempt and unbelievable
loathing.
"I 'ave met mans which would not fight for zeir money," he said with great
deliberation, his lip curled. "I 'ave met mans which would not fight for
zeir lives. But I 'ave never before met ze man which would not fight for
'is woman."
Pell saw that he was doomed now. He made one final desperate attempt. "But
if you--shoot me--you'll be hanged!"
"Ha!" laughed Lopez. "If I am ever caught, I shall be 'anged many times!"
"I'm an American citizen!" shrilled Pell.
"I 'ave kill many American citizens," replied Lopez, without the slightest
compunction.
Pell wrung his hands. "My Goverment will pursue you!"
"You are mistaken. Your Government will watchfully wait. We kill American
citizen. Your Government write us beautiful letter about it.... But we have
waste time!" He drew his gun.
As Lopez leveled the weapon. Pell all but dropped on his knees. "Wait!" he
cried. "I'll give you money! Plenty of money! A million dollars! Yes, two
million!" It could not be that so shameful a fate was to be his.
"It is not zat we want money," the bandit replied. "It is zat we _don't_
want _you_."
Terror seized poor Pell. "But for God's sake," he wailed, "you wouldn't do
that! You couldn't! Without even a chance for my life. At least fight me
fair!" His voice seemed far away to him--like the voice of another being
from a distant world.
"Fair?" Lopez rolled the word over.
"Give me a gun, too!" the fool prayed.
"Give you a gun! Pedro!" The man had evidently been just outside the door,
and came in at once. "Pedro, you 'ear?" And Pedro grinned.
"Yes! Give me a chance!"
"I shall never understand ze American idea. I give you a gun, you say?"
"Yes! That's the least you can do!" Pell was weeping now.
"But if I should give you a gun, you might shoot me wiz it!" Lopez laughed.
"You won't?"
"I am no damn fool!" the bandit cried. And he deliberately raised his gun
again.
"You're not going to kill me? No! for the love of God, don't!" He plunged
forward, groveling at Lopez's feet. A woman in a melodrama could not have
begged harder for mercy. "Spare me!" were the words that fell from his
pitiful lips. "For God's sake, spare me! I'll do anything! Go anywhere! He
can have her! You can have her! Her, and all the money I've got, if only
you'll spare my life!"
The bandit looked down in utter disgust at the cringing form. Never had he
seen anything in the world that he detested more. Pell's fingers were on
the bandit's boots.
"I did not know zat even a dog could be so yellow," he said. Then he
turned to Pedro. "I do not 'unt rabbits. You kill 'im, Pedro." And he would
not look again on the miserable specimen of a man that wallowed there on
the floor.
"Ah! for the love of God!" came from Pell, who had half risen. At that
instant Pedro shot from his hip at the debased creature. The form stiffened
and collapsed like a bag, falling partially under the table.
"It is a good deed," said Lopez, turning. "He was evil man."
The shot had been heard without. "Red," Gilbert, Hardy, and a few Mexicans
rushed in at the sound.
"Who shot?" cried the former.
"Pedro," said Lopez.
"But what was he shooting at?" "Red" asked.
Lopez smiled. "Only ze 'usband."
"What!" cried "Red." He turned and saw the body of Pell lying sprawled on
the floor, and horror came over him. "You've killed him!" His voice was
husky.
"I 'ave. Most enjoyishly!" said Lopez, lighting a cigarette.
Gilbert went over and stared down at the mute frame. "He's dead," he
announced. "Completely. Pedro never misses," was the bandit's only
comment.
"But to kill a man--like that! In cold blood!" Hardy gasped. "Oh, it's
horrible!"
"Why not?" Lopez wanted to know. "Ze skindler, ze coward what beat his
wife. Was evil man." What white-livered folk these Americans were!
Gilbert looked down at Pell's body, which had now, in death, a certain
curious dignity. "But don't you see what you've done?"
Lopez looked at him in bland amazement. "You wouldn't still fool around wiz
ze foolish law, ze silly court?" he inquired. "Do you not see 'ow much
better is my way? One hour ago you 'ave no money, no rancho, no woman. One
little hour! Ze money she is paid, ze rancho she is yours, and ze woman
what you want to marry is free for do so!" He looked Gilbert in the eyes,
and came close to him. "Tell me, 'ave I not keep my promise? 'Ave I not
make you, in one little hour, a 'appy man?"