Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/166

148, maybe Los Angeles. But that is manana. First he is take girl an' then he is send her back to you, senor, afterwards. They are all to go to el Monte del Muerte an' he geev them money to help.

"Me, I am listen to all this, senor, an' I grow hot an' mad. W'en he start to talk again about the girl I get from my bed, I fin' my knife—an'—pronto!—I am in that room with them, an' that knife is so close to Hollister throat that his eyes look at Death, he see el muerte, senor, as it scratch his skeen. An' he is afraid. Pedro, he take away the knife, he throw me back, he slap my face an' Hollister laugh an' say—'Take her away.'

"So they throw me on my bed like the old sombrero an' I lie an' weep because I have no more knife. Then Hollister he come in an' say you mus' dreenk this. I theenk maybe it is poison but he make me dreenk, only the las' mouthful I do not swallow, senor, but w'en he go out I spit it on the floor. So maybe I do not sleep so long as he weesh. It did not taste muy bueno, that weeskey. Now you go to find your querida an' to keel Hollister. I would like to do that. Si. But I am too chico. too weak."

Her eyes flamed, her breast was tumultuous under the orange silk, the pulses beat in her throat and she seemed filled with venom, a snake that was tied short, able to hiss, to rear, to strike but not to reach.

"Where has he taken her? Do you know that?" demanded Sheridan.

"Si, senor. To El Pueblo del Silencio. The City of Silence. Does the senor know where that is?"