"
Manuel took the flattery with a glimpse of white teeth and a
deprecatory wave of the hand, and himself qualified it modestly
afterward.
"With the knife--perhaps. But the gringos have guns which speak fast.
Still, we would do our best--"
"Say, if he's going back to town to-morrow," spake Jack suddenly,
from where he reclined in the shadow "why can't I write a note to Bill
Wilson and have him send down my guns? The Captain took them away,
you know; but he won't object to giving them back now!" His voice was
bitter.
"The rest of them might. You seem to think that when you killed
Perkins you wiped out the whole delegation--which you didn't. What was
the row about; if you don't mind telling me?"
"I thought you knew," said Jack quite sincerely, which proved more
than anything how absorbed he was in his own part in the affair. He
shifted his head upon his clasped hands so that his eyes might rest
upon the waning firelight, where the pot of frijoles, set back from
supper, was still steaming languidly in the hot ashes.
"You started it yourself, two weeks ago," he announced whimsically,
to lighten a little the somber tale. "If you hadn't bought that white
horse from that drunken Spaniard, I'd be holding a handful of aces
and kings to-night, most likely, in Bill Wilson's place. And my legs
wouldn't be aching like the devil," he added, reminded anew of his
troubles, when he shifted his position.
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