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Kid Wolf was so dazed for a time that he but dimly realized what was happening to him. Half stunned, he was carried, along with Dave Robbins, out of the arroyo. He was light-headed from the blows he had received. That torture was in store for them, he well knew. He heard Gil Garvey's voice calling for Yellow Skull. Red faces, smeared with war paint, glared at him.
The travelers were shaken about like marbles in a boy's pocket. Wildcat Canyon, into which the road ran, was of a real loneliness a loneliness that penetrated one's consciousness like an odor or a sound. On either side the foothills rose, dark and forbidding; to the left of the road a deep arroyo ran; on the other, the slope of the hill rose gradually to the sky line.
Some of the rocky hills are partly covered by thickets, and on the banks of the larger streams, especially to the north of Las Minas, willow-trees are not uncommon. Near the Arroyo Tapes I heard of a wood of palms; and one of these trees, of considerable size, I saw near the Pan de Azucar, in lat. 35 degs.
And Hackett saw the point and rose to the occasion. Advancing to where the slayers of the wild beast were standing above its remains and declaring it to be at last defunct, he said, with deep earnestness: "Boys, I must thank you for this gallant rescue. While driving through the arroyo that cruel monster that you have so fearlessly and repeatedly slaughtered sprang upon us from the tree tops.
Sanderson saw the outlines of animal and rider as they appeared for an instant, partly screened from him by the trees and undergrowth on the arroyo edge. Then horse and rider vanished, going northward, away from the arroyo, silently, swiftly.
He had known his desert. He had never known hers. With an exclamation Buck Johnson turned abruptly back to the arroyo. Button followed him, mildly curious, certain that his master's reappearance meant a summons for himself. Down the miniature cliff the man slid, confidently, without hesitation, sure of himself.
Ten seconds after entering the arroyo I was stumbling along in an absolute blackness. It almost seemed to me that I could reach out my hands and touch it, as one would touch a wall. Or perhaps not exactly that, for a wall is hard, and this darkness was soft and yielding, in the manner of enveloping hangings. Directly above me was a narrow, jagged, and irregular strip of sky with stars.
A few quick words sent the dog Colin out among the sheep, by now scattered far and wide over the hill. They presently came pouring toward her, diverged westward, and massed at the base of a butte rising from a dry arroyo.
They won't let me, because I got twins though they ain't mine. But, now, I've got to take this here horse over to Dan Anderson." He mounted and rode away. It was Dan Anderson himself who presently came at a gallop across the arroyo. A heavy revolver swung at his hip, a rifle rested in the scabbard under his leg, and a coat was rolled behind his saddle, plainsman fashion.
No one asked Padre Arroyo what he would do with the sinners, but all knew that punishment would be sharp and summary: the men hoped that Andreo's mustang had carried him beyond its reach; the girls, horrified as they were, wept and prayed in secret for Pilar. A week later, in the early morning, Padre Arroyo sat on the corridor.
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