Bare Hands

“No, no, we have none too many.”

The rider smiled gravely.

“Señor, you have more than enough. If you have to fire one, you will be fortunate if you have the chance to fire two. The Wolf moves fast when he makes his kill. You gringos are brave. You are more than brave, you are foolish. Come, flee with me. With the four of us, with the ammunition you have, we can hold off any attack from the rear. We will ride through the pass and be safe.

“I have come far. I have seen the bodies of many men, and some of them had white skin. Come, amigos, is it not better that we ride?”

Standish shook his head doggedly.

“Then he would find the mine deserted and take a good title. We protect the property of our employers.”

The rider shook his head slowly.

“It is wonderful! No wonder that you of the north have much money. Always are you willing to lay down your lives lest your precious property should be taken. Is there, then some special heaven for the gringo which gives him standing according to the property which surrounds his corpse?”

Standish flashed the man a swift look. His words bordered on insolence, and yet, at a time like this, a certain amount of leeway was given.

“Give him some shells, Vincent, and let him be off,” he said crisply.

Shaffer’s reluctant hands furnished a few shells to the rider.

The man accepted them with a grin in which there was more insolence than thanks. He stuffed them in his belt, clapped spurs to his horse and clattered on up the canon.

The men followed him with their eyes for a moment, then looked back down the canon.

The cloud of dust had become whiter, had assumed outline. In a few moments it would top the crest of the rolling ridge. They watched it in fascination.

It was Dan Harder’s slow voice that cut in on their thoughts.

“The rider didn’t go up the trail,” he said.

“Huh?”

Standish snapped out the word impatiently.

Harder pointed one of his thick fingers.

The trail dipped down into the canon, crossed a dry stream-bed, and then ran through some brush. Half a mile farther it once more climbed from the wash and it was to this part of the trail, clearly visible, that Harder pointed.

Had the man remained on the trail, the dark blotch of horse and rider would have showed on the trail where it swung round the face of the slope. But the hill glinted in the sunlight, silent, deserted, not even a wisp of dust showing where anything had been along the trail.

And down the canon, on the soft breeze of the morning came the unmistakable taint of carrion, stronger, it seemed, than before.

Vincent Shaffer shuddered.

Dan Harder shrugged his huge shoulders.

“He circled around through that little saddle. He’ll either hide or ride back an’ join the Wolf.”

Robert Standish stroked the thin, pointed beard which gave his face an atmosphere of dignified distinction.

“Probably a spy, sent on to find out how many of us there were. You notice he tried to stampede us into flight. The Wolf would very much like to come on this mine abandoned and have some of his men relocate it.”

“Here they come!” yelled Shaffer, his white forefinger pointing to the crest of the hill.

The riders boiled over it in a black column that came without formation. At times it swelled until ten or fifteen horses were abreast, spreading out on each side of the trail. At times the stream narrowed until only one horseman followed the beaten center of the dusty trail. Then the stream swelled again.

A motley array of mounted men, they poured over the lip of the hill, spread out like a black river as they worked down the slope. And, behind them, a dust cloud billowed upward to the blue-black of the Mexican sky, drifting slightly on the carrion tainted breeze.

“Well, boys, we’re in for it,” said Robert Standish in emotionless tones. “Better get our pistols ready. And we’ll stay inside the ’dobe. That’ll protect us from stray bullets. They won’t start a general attack unless the Wolf orders it.

“That rider was right. If he does order it, we probably won’t even have a chance to reload. Let me do most of the talking.”

As calmly as though he were getting ready to write a letter, he entered the ’dobe, buckled on a revolver, sat at the battered desk and lit a cigarette.

Dan Harder sat on the edge of one of the cots, his great fingers flexing slightly.

Vincent Shaffer stealthily slipped a handful of glittering brass cylinders into his pocket, rattled the rest into a fan-shaped formation so that hurried fingers could snatch them up. Then he evidently felt that this looked like too much of an invitation to hostilities and swept the shells once more into a pile, covered them with a blanket.

Dan Harder watched him with eyes that glowed with sardonic humor. But his lips remained closed. He had made no move to buckle on the revolver which hung from the frame of the cot.

He had not known Shaffer until he came to the mine. Yet it was a strange whim of Fate that one woman had sent them both into this exile.