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Updated: June 20, 2025
Should he stand pat on his straight or discard the heart and draw to his straight flush? Culvera's play had shown great strength and would probably beat the pat hand. The lad took a chance and called for one card. Culvera drew two. He left them lying on the table while he discarded leisurely. "You're all in, Pheelip. It's a showdown. What you got?" Philip had drawn the six of clubs.
He came to my cell and offered me my life if I would knife Culvera in the back. I couldn't see the proposition. But I got a chance, knocked him down, tied him up, and slipped out in his serape. Then I made my getaway on the horse he had left for me in case I came through with the knifing." Instantly Culvera knew the story to be true.
Culvera asked no questions as to why the general was alone with a condemned man at such an hour nor as to how the American had succeeded in overpowering him. He understood that his chief's wounded vanity was torturing the man enough to render curiosity unsafe. But the boyish sentry did not know this. He ventured on a sympathetic question.
"Because I'm a white man, general. We don't kill in the dark and run away. When I offer to fight him to a finish I go the limit and then some. For I don't hate Culvera that bad. But I think a heap of Steve Yeager's life, so I'll stand pat on my proposition." "Am I a fool, señor?" asked the Mexican harshly.
The trouble was none of our seeking." Culvera shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands in a gesture of bland denial. "Lies! All lies, general. Have I not already told you the truth?" Coldly Pasquale pronounced judgment. "What matter which one shot Mendoza. Both were firing. Both escaped together. Both are equally guilty." He clapped his hands. A trooper entered.
Something might turn up yet to save him. When Pasquale found that only an insignificant peon Pedro Cabenza had been taken in his dragnet, he exploded with fury. He ordered the man shot against the nearest wall at once. Culvera turned the prisoner so that the moon fell full upon his face. He looked searchingly at him. Yeager knew that he was discovered. He spoke in English.
I have been told that an American is to be executed at sunset, which is almost immediately. You will understand that as a representative of the United States it is necessary that I should investigate the facts." Swiftly Culvera considered. If the American officer had arrived an hour later, Yeager would have been safely out of the way. How had he discovered already that an American was to be shot?
Since he had no desire at this moment to hold a conversation with Ramon Culvera he drove his heels into the side of the cow pony. The horse leaped forward just as a revolver rang out. So close did the shot come to Yeager that it lifted the sombrero from his head as he dodged. After he was out of range Yeager laughed. "Pasquale gets his hat back again ventilated.
But the spirit of the unbeaten spoke in his eyes and trod in his limping step. "The general wishes to see the prisoner," explained the messenger to the officer. The party wheeled at a right angle, toward the headquarters of Culvera. Steve thought he understood what this meant. Culvera had sent for him to gloat over him, to taunt him. The man wanted to hear him beg for his life.
Knew you the moment I set eyes on you, though it was some smoky when we last met." Culvera rose, his knuckles pressing against the table. There was a faint smile of triumph, on his masked, immobile face. "Farewell, Señor Yeager," he said softly. "After all, it's a world full of hardship and unpleasantness. You're well rid of it." Steve knew his sole appeal lay in Pasquale. Ochampo was a nonentity.
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