Bare Hands

“But,” purred Ayala, “the enemy might come. Then you would give them the other guns and that would be a big mistake.”

Vincent Shaffer answered the accusation, speaking in swift Spanish.

“Oh, but we would never, never give aid to the enemies of Huerta Hidalgo Martinez.”

Ayala’s dark, luminous eyes shifted to him with a mocking twinkle.

“Ah, but señor, you have already. But ten minutes before we rode up. He was an enemy fleeing for the pass on a horse. When our men surprised him he had in his belt shiny cartridges, which had not been worn long in the belt. They came fresh from a box!”

Shaffer drew a sleeve across his perspiring forehead.

“A spy. I thought so,” was Harder’s brief comment in English.

Once more Ayala barked a command.

The men darted to the corner, dug through the mud plaster, disclosed the secret hiding place, took out the machine gun, the extra case of pistols, the ammunition that had been stored against such an emergency as this.

“Spied again,” muttered Standish in soft English, as casually as though he had been commenting on the weather. “That cleans us out.”

Ayala wrote out a receipt in which he specified only a general quantity of munitions. He gave an order on the treasury of Mexico and passed the paper to the dictator.

The dictator touched the pencil with his blunt fingers. Ayala signed the name while the finger tip rested upon the pencil.

“Señores, it is done!

“And now how about our brave men? Surely you have provisions? You wish to welcome your deliverers. See, we have saved you from the dangers of the revolutionists! You are safe! Our men protect you. They must be fed!”

This time he did not wait for consent.

He barked an order to the men, and instantly every one was out of the saddle, scurrying about like so many leaves blown before an autumn wind, each helping himself. They scuttled into the cook-shack, through the bunk house, into the smelting room, through the little mill. Such things as they wanted they took.

Ayala looked about him with smiling eyes.

Huerta Hidalgo Martinez remained in stolid indifference of posture, but his burning eyes still retained their loot-hunger. Such mind as he possessed had been educated above the simple emotions of his followers. He knew that the mine was a thousand times more valuable than anything that was on the ground, ten thousand times more valuable than such loot as his men could secure. The mine, then, was the loot of the leader.

But his time was not yet. Like the men who had waited without, listening to the hum of voices within, patiently waiting for the preliminaries to get over with, the dictator sat heavily in the swivel chair, waiting for his smiling secretary of war to arrange the still further preliminaries that would give him the mine.

Once with the mine in possession there were rival companies who might be induced to bid for it; not for its full worth, to be sure, but a sufficient amount to pay the dictator well for his trouble. The price would be paid partly in munitions of war, partly in coin, partly in such other things as were difficult to procure, yet which caused the red glow of loot-hunger to shine from the leader’s eyes.

“Damned shame we didn’t stop ’em sooner. Let’s try it anyway,” grunted Harder, his knee still motionless. “I’m itchin’ for a chance to take this bimbo apart.”

“We’ve no weapons now,” reminded Standish.

Harder grunted.

“I’ve got my bare hands. That’s all I need for this one. He’s got a gun.”

“No, no, no!” yelped Shaffer. “I don’t want to die now. Not down here. No, no.”

Harder’s body moved by not so much as the flicker of a muscle.

“Say when,” he told Standish.

But Standish shook his head. His bleached eyes swept over the havoc that was being wrought.

“We’ve made our decision. Perhaps it was wrong, but it’s made. We’ve sacrificed everything to keep possession of the mine. To start hostilities now would be to lose it. Perhaps we can deceive these men with protestations of friendship. After they’ve cleaned out everything they can take they’ll move on. We’ll be left in possession of the mine. The Federal troops will follow.”

Harder grunted.

“If a white man’s got anything on the ball at all, he’s got a superiority to these guys. It’s a mistake ever to give in the first inch.”

Ayala’s smiling eyes surveyed them coldly.

“Señores, good news! I have decided that here we will make our headquarters for awhile. Behind us there is a body of troops who call themselves Federals. But they are really revolutionists, fighting against Huerta Hidalgo Martinez. We shall make headquarters here, send our troops back to the hill and rout these traitors.”

Standish bowed without the slightest flash of expression in his bleached eyes.

“You are welcome.”

There followed orders, bustling activity. The men mounted and swept back down the trail. Ayala commandeered the ’dobe as military headquarters. The three men were relegated to the cook shack. The mine had been looted clean of blankets, provisions, dishes, guns, ammunition, stores.