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.
Rita Standish was one of those women who are born to make discord. Men saw her and desired. And her laughing eyes surveyed them impersonally, as playthings which had been sent to dance attendance upon her and amuse her.
Vincent Shaffer had been the first of the two. He had sought to impress her with his air of polish, that courtly reserve which had won women before. But when he had been hard hit he lost his mask and begged for her hand in marriage, as eager as a child.
Her laughing eyes surveyed him.
“You have not been hardened to the world. You are a mere boy,” she had told him. “Now father is in Mexico. Perhaps he would have room for you on his mine. Then, after six months — who knows?”
And so Vincent Shaffer had entered the Mexican wilderness, cursing it in his heart, afraid of it. And he wondered whether she had merely devised this method of securing assistance for her father and getting rid of a too pressing suitor, or whether she had been really sincere. The thought tortured him, even as the heat and the coarse fare tortured him.
Dan Harder had been the second. Her laughing eyes had looked at his huge hands.
“You are out of place in a parlor,” she had said. “Now my father has a mine in Mexico. I believe he might find a place—”
Harder had made one of his typical remarks, a remark that was far from the subject.
“The time will come,” he had said, “when your eyes will quit laughing at existence.”
But he had gone to the mine.
Each suspected why the other was there. Vincent Shaffer hated Dan Harder, as he did the country. Dan Harder always regarded Shaffer with quizzical amusement as though wondering what Rita Standish could have seen in such a man.
Robert Standish regarded them impartially through eyes which had been bleached into expressionless courtesy and treated them alike.
Chapter II
In the Hands of “The Wolf?”
From without the ’dobe there sounded the tramp of hoofs as horses broke from a rapid trot into a ragged walk, came to a stop before the doorway.
Robert Standish arose from the desk, went to the door and threw it open. Vincent Shaffer reached toward the rifle with moist hands, then thought better of the action and drew away. Dan Harder remained on the edge of the cot, his knee gripped between his huge hands.
They were a ragged lot, the men without. Saddles are worth more in Mexico than the horses that carry them — at times. These men had sacks, bits of rawhide, scraps of leather, anything that might serve the purpose for saddles. For shoes they had sandals, and their browned feet showed skin that had been cracked and toughened until it resembled leather itself.
The men looked upon those within the ’dobe with eyes that were avaricious. They spoke no word, and that was a bad sign.
Robert Standish knew the country and the ways of the people. Perhaps he was the only one of the three white men who could form an accurate estimate of the danger. But Robert Standish had lived a life. Death would find him indifferent.
“Where is your leader?” he asked.
There was no reply from the horsemen. They looked about them with loot-hungry eyes.
Standish raised his voice.
And then there was a commotion in the rear. A short, broad-shouldered man spurred his horse forward. Here was a saddle that was inlaid with silver. Here were shoes that had cost more than a hundred sandals.
But the face was the same. It was a heavy face, given but little to expression and never to thought. The eyes were loot-hungry, but they looked not at the clothes of the Americans. They flickered over the ore dump, the machinery of the mine.
Shortly behind him came a different type of man.
If the leader was named for the wolf, the man behind should have been named for the fox. His face was thin, mobile with expression, but the expression of cunning dominated all the other expressions. His eyes were large, lustrous, his hands slender, the fingers tapering. The mouth was thin. On occasions it could be cruel.
“Señores, it is a pleasure! We heard that the mine had been abandoned. In these troublous times it is hard to police our entire territory. Please be assured that we shall protect property and lives. It is the rival aspirant for the government that makes the territory unsafe.”
Standish stood to one side of the doorway and bowed deeply. It was noticeable that he did not step outside of the protection of the thick walls.
“Will you honor us by entering? I regret that we cannot offer you hospitality. Our help have been terrified by the lawlessness of the country. They have left us without warning. Now that you are here we know there will be no lawlessness, but our help did not understand you were so close.”
In such manner did the two men dissemble their real feelings, neither being deceived by the speech of the other.
The fox-like man slipped furtively from the saddle. The leader lurched his bulk to the ground.
“Señores,” proclaimed the fox-man, “you are honored indeed! Señor Huerta Hidalgo Martinez, the supreme dictator and commander of the armies of all Mexico, awaits at your doorway!