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And now why do you tell us this?" "So that you will kill him for a price." Red laughed harshly. "By Gawd! Madame Dolores Ysobel de Tajeda or Coogan, whatever yuah name is, I'd giv' a better price ef yuh was able to tuhn yuhself into a man fer a couple o' minnits. What d'yuh take us fer, greasers?"
Stewart, you do not mean my capture whatever you call it was anything more than mere accident?" "I do mean that. But Stillwell and your brother think the guerrillas wanted money and arms, and they just happened to make off with you because you ran under a horse's nose." "You do not incline to that point of view?" "I don't. Neither does Nels nor Nick Steele. And we know Don Carlos and the Greasers.
Miss Majesty, it was Arizona thet made Nels what he is, the Arizona desert an' the work of a cowman. He's seen ridin' at Canyon Diablo an' the Verdi an' Tonto Basin. He knows every mile of Aravaipa Valley an' the Pinaleno country. He's ranged from Tombstone to Douglas. He hed shot bad white men an' bad Greasers before he was twenty-one. He's seen some life, Nels has.
"The Don's pretty slick, but his vaqueros are bad actors. It's just this way. Nels said the other day to me, 'Gene, I haven't packed a gun for years until lately, and it feels good whenever I meet any of those strange Greasers. You see, Stillwell, Don Carlos has vaqueros coming and going all the time. They're guerrilla bands, that's all. And they're getting uglier.
Just one word from the Lieutenant and the Greasers were surrounded, and us with our pistols drawn. The outlaws seemed to be sound asleep, but when we commenced to close in on them they woke, and the first one that jumped to his feet had his pistol in his hand, but when he looked around and saw the situation he dropped his pistol before the Lieutenant had time to tell him to drop it.
In a moment they were gone, leaving Hawe and his several comrades behind. Hawe was spitefully ejecting a wad of tobacco from his mouth and swearing in an undertone about "white-livered Greasers." He cocked his red eye speculatively at Stewart. "Wal, I reckon as you're so hell-bent on doin' it up brown thet you'll try to fire me off'n the range, too?"
He talked of resigning and going to Mexico, to offer his sword to whichever proved the stronger faction. It would be a picnic after the Western Front. A man could whip a brigade of those greasers into shape and become a power. There ought to be good chances for loot. Yet Hollister enjoyed his company. Rutherford was genial. He was the first man for long to accept Hollister as a human being.
"'I never knew what a Christian was before she came: you know we have no faith in Texas in things we can't draw a bead on. But when she read me the story of the Scribes and Pharisees and Christ I felt ashamed to be like those Flat-heads and Greasers in the New Testament who did not believe in him; and now I feel sure of knowing some one in heaven, for Kitty has promised to find me there.
"Why, Miss Majesty, thet's shore all a mistaken idee of yours about me hatin' the car," he said, in his slow, soft drawl. "I was only jealous of Link; an' the boys, they made thet joke up on me about bein' scared of ridin' fast. Shore I'm powerful proud to go. An' I reckon if you hedn't asked me my feelin's might hev been some hurt. Because if you're goin' down among the Greasers you want me."
"Such as what-like?" asked Slim, willing to let Bud take the lead, as the search for the rustlers was distinctly an affair of the boy ranchers. "We ought not to go ahead, all in a bunch," decided Bud. "We may run into a bunch of Greasers at some turn of the trail, and if we have scouts out we can handle the situation better."
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