The Yaqui alone spent the waiting time in activity. He made
trips up on the lava slope, and each time he returned with
guns or boots or sombreros, or something belonging to the
bandits that had fallen. He never fetched in a saddle or bridle,
and from that the rangers concluded Rojas's horses had long before
taken their back trail. What speculation, what consternation
those saddled horses would cause if they returned to Forlorn River!
As Ladd improved there was one story he had to hear every day. It
was the one relating to what he had missed--the sight of Rojas
pursued and plunged to his doom. The thing had a morbid fascination
for the sick ranger. He reveled in it. He tortured Mercedes.
His gentleness and consideration, heretofore so marked, were in
abeyance to some sinister, ghastly joy. But to humor him Mercedes
racked her soul with the sensations she had sufferd when Rojas
hounded her out on the ledge; when she shot him; when she sprang
to throw herself over the precipice; when she fought him; when
with half-blinded eyes she looked up to see the merciless Yaqui
reaching for the bandit. Ladd fed his cruel longing with Thorne's
poignant recollections, with the keen, clear, never-to-be-forgotten
shocks to Gale's eye and ear. Jim Lash, for one at least, never
tired of telling how he had seen and heard the tragedy, and every
time in the telling it gathered some more tragic and gruesome
detail. Jim believed in satiating the ranger.
Pages:
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333