ly....
The prisoner turned pale as a corpse; his face lengthened; his eyelids
were fixed in a glassy stare. He breathed in agony, his whole body
shook as with ague. Blondie kept his gun in the same position for a
moment long as all eternity. His eyes shone queerly. An expression of
supreme pleasure lit up his fat puffy face.

"No, friend Federal," he drawled, putting back his gun into the
holster; "I'm not going to kill you just yet.... I'll make you my
orderly. You'll see that I'm not so hardhearted!"

Slyly he winked at his companions. The prisoner had turned into an
animal; he gulped, panting, dry-mouthed. Camilla, who had witnessed the
scene, spurred her horse and caught up with Demetrio.

"What a brute that Blondie is: you ought to see what he did to a
wretched prisoner," she said. Then she told Demetrio what had occurred.
The latter wrinkled his brow but made no answer.

War Paint called Camilla aside.

"Hey you ... what are you gobbling about? Blondie's my man, understand?
From now on, you know how things are: whatever you've got against him
you've got against me too! I'm warning you."

Camilla, frightened, hurried back to Demetrio's side.

X

The men camped in a meadow, near three small lone houses standing in a
row, their white walls cutting the purple fringe of the horizon.
Demetrio and Camilla rode toward them. Inside the corral a man, clad in
shirt and trousers of cheap white cloth, sat greedily puffing at a
cornhusk cigarette. Another man sitting beside him on a flat cut stone
was shelling corn. Kicking the air with one dry, withered leg, the
extremity of which was like a goat's hoof, he frightened the chickens
away.

"Hurry up, 'Pifanio," said the man who was smoking, "the sun has gone
down already and you haven't taken the animals to water."

A horse neighed outside the corral; both men glanced up in amazement.
Demetrio and Camilla were looking over the corral wall at them.

"I just want a place to sleep for my woman and me," Demetrio said
reassuringly.

As he explained that he was the chief of a small army which was to camp
nearby that night, the man smoking, who owned the place, bid them enter
with great deference. He ran to fetch a broom and a pail of water to
dust and wash the best corner of the hut as decent lodging for his
distinguished guests.

"Here, 'Pifanio, go out there and unsaddle the horses."

The man who was shelling corn stood up with an effort. He was clad in a
ta