Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/193

 tion so much as a busy railroad-track when it comes to trundle-beds. But while the United States lines yearly cause the battle of Gettysburg to blush when it comes to boasting of carnage, our little brunette brother beyond the Rio Grande has a way of making it uncomfortable for train-crews when a simple life is crushed out. It isn't because a peon is highly prized as a bit of social bric-à-brac, but because, I reckon, the train-crews are usually made up of, or bossed by, Americans.

"The alcalde admitted the defendants had no course to choose, except to run over the man, but he added, with a graceful flirt of his hands: 'The man is dead. What would you have? The lesson must be taught.' He also said that the three judges who sat on the case, at first were of the inclination to let a line of barefooted riflemen toy with the quartet behind a 'dobe wall. 'But,' he concluded, 'we are merciful—we are merciful.'

"After kicking the hyena to stop his howling, Tib sat down by the bear-cage that night and thought steady for ten minutes. Then he jolted his hat over his right ear, and I began to realize we were about to become fair and merry knight-errants.

"‘Billy,' he declared, 'I could never paint polka-dots on a greyhound and believe he was a leopard if I left those men to go to the country of saline pursuits. Once we can get them out of Quelta it's