With an oath Pablo turned sullenly away. He knew he was no match for this man at any point. Yet he was a leader among his own people because of the force in him.
Gordon slept little during the night. He had been so badly beaten that outraged nature took her revenge in a feverish restlessness that precluded any real rest. With the coming of day the temperature subsided. Pablo brought a basin of water and a sponge, with which he washed the bloody face and head of the bound man.
Dick observed that his nurse had a few marks of his own as souvenirs of the battle. The cheek bone had been laid open by a blow that must have been made with his knuckles. One eye was half shut, and beneath it was a deep purple swelling.
"Had quite a little jamboree, didn't we?" remarked Gordon, with a grin. "I'll bet you lads mussed my hair up some."
Pablo said nothing, but after he had made his unwilling guest as presentable and comfortable as possible he proceeded to business.
"You want to know why we have made you prisoner, Señor Gordon?" he suggested. "It has perhaps occur to you that it would have been much easier to shoot you and be done?"
"Yes, that has struck me, Menendez. I reckon your nerve didn't quite run to murder maybe."
"Not so. I spare you because you save my brother's life after he shoot at you. But I exact conditions. So?"
The eyes of the miner had grown hard and steelly. The lids had closed on them so that only slits were open. "Let's hear them."
"First, that you give what is called word of honor not to push any charges against those taking you prisoner."
"Pass that for the present," ordered Dick curtly. "Number two please."
"That you sign a paper drawn up by a lawyer giving all your rights in the Rio Chama Valley to Señorita Valdés and promise never to go near the valley again."
"Nothing doing," answered the prisoner promptly, his jaws snapping tight.
"But yes--most assuredly yes. I risk much to save your life. But you must go to meet me, Señor. Is a man's life not worth all to him? So? Sign, and you live."
The eyes of the men had fastened--the fierce, black, eager ones of the Mexican and the steelly gray ones of the Anglo-Saxon. There was the rigor of battle in that gaze, the grinding of rapier on rapier. Gordon was a prisoner in the hands of his enemy. He lay exhausted from a terrible beating. That issues of life and death hung in the balance a child might have guessed. But victory lay with the white man. The lids of Menendez fell over sullen, angry eyes.