Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/174

 gun, though the Mexicans fell before their blows like tenpins. For a moment they stared at each other blankly. Then above the tumult, the shrieking of women and the scrambling of the old and timid to escape, rose Ignacio Bojarques's voice, shrill with excitement:

"Shove up your hands, gringos!" His gun covered Ben Evans in particular.

Anger and chagrin were ludicrously commingled in the cowboys' faces. The Mexicans had them at their mercy, and the Americans knew that, in their hysterical excitement, they might carry out the threat which the menacing gun-barrels implied.

Slowly, as though the action gave them actual physical pain, their hands were lifted above their heads, and Ben Evans's was the last reluctant pair to go up.

There was a strange silence, a hesitating, even embarrassed silence, for the Mexicans, having the advantage, did not for the instant know what to do with it. They dared not shoot the cowboys down in cold blood for they were only too familiar with the swift vengeance of the Americans, and they were afraid to let them go. Nor did they want to