But Yaqui was right. Only an Indian could
have done it. You can gamble the Papago alive meant slim chance
for us. Because he'd led straight to where Mercedes is hidden, an'
then we'd have left cover to fight it out...When you come to think
of the Yaqui's hate for Greasers, when you just seen him pass up
a shot at one--well, I don't know how to say what I mean, but
damn me, my som-brer-ro is off to the Indian!"
"I reckon so, an' I reckon the ball's opened," rejoined Lash, and
now that former nervous impatience so unnatural to him was as
if it had never been. He was smilingly cool, and his voice had
almost a caressing note. He tapped the breech of his Winchester
with a sinewy brown hand, and he did not appear to be addressing
any one in particular. "Yaqui's opened the ball. Look up your
pardners there, gents, an' get ready to dance."
Another wait set in then, and judging by the more direct rays of the
sun and a receding of the little shadows cast by the choyas, Gale
was of the opinion that it was a long wait. But it seemed short.
The four men were lying under the bank of a half circular hole in
the lava. It was notched and cracked, and its rim was fringed by
choyas. It sloped down and opened to an unobstructed view of
the crater. Gale had the upper position, fartherest to the right,
and therefore was best shielded from possible fire from the higher
ridges of the rim, some three hundred yards distant. Jim came
next, well hidden in a crack.
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