RAYDON turned back. He bent over Sterrett who had drifted out of the paralysis of the blow into a drunken stupor. There were deep scratches on the giant’s cheeks—the marks of Suarra’s nails. The jaw was badly swollen where he had hit it. Graydon dragged him over to the tent, thrust a knapsack under his head and threw a blanket over him. Then he went out and built up the fire.
Hardly had be begun to prepare the supper when he heard a trampling through the underbrush. Soon Soames and Dancre came up through the trees.
“Find any signs?” he asked them.
“Signs? Hell—no!” snarled the New Englander. “Say, Graydon, did you hear something like a lot of horns? Damned queer horns, too. They seemed to be over here.”
Graydon nodded, abstractedly. Abruptly he realized that he must tell these men what had happened, must warn them and urge them to prepare for defense. But how much should he tell?
All?
Tell them of Suarra’s beauty, of her golden ornaments and her gem tipped spears of gold? Tell them what she had said of Atahualpa’s treasure and of that ancient Yu-Atlanchi where priceless gems were “thick as the sands upon the bed of a stream?”
Well he knew that if he did there would be no further reasoning with them; that they would go berserk with greed. Yet something of it he must tell them if they were to be ready for that assault which he was certain would come with the dawn.
And of Suarra they would learn soon enough from Sterrett when he awakened.
He heard an exclamation from Dancre who had passed on into the tent; heard him come out; stood up and faced the wiry little Frenchman.
“What’s the matter wit’ Sterrett, eh?” Dancre snapped. “First I thought he’s drunk. Then I see he’s scratched like wild cat and wit’ a lump on his jaw as big as one orange. What you do to Sterrett, eh?”
Graydon had made up his mind; was ready to answer.
“Dancre,” he said, “Soames—we’re in a bad box. I came in from hunting less than an hour ago and found Sterrett wrestling with a girl. That’s bad medicine down here—the worst, and you two know it. I had to knock Sterrett out before I could get the girl away from him. Her people will probably be after us in the morning. There’s no use trying to get away. They’ll soon enough find us in this wilderness of which we know nothing and they presumably know all. This place is as good as any other to meet them. And it’s a better place than any if we have to fight. We’d better spend the night getting it ready so we can put up a good one, if we have to.”
“A girl, eh?” said Dancre. “What she look like? Where she come from? How she get away?”
Graydon choose the last question to answer.
“I let her go,” he said.
“You let her go!” snarled Soames. “What the hell did you do that for, man? Why didn’t you tie her up? We could have held her as a hostage, Graydon—had some thing to do some trading with when her damned bunch of Indians came.”
“She wasn’t an Indian, Soames,” began Graydon, then hesitated.
“You mean she was white—Spanish?” broke in Dancre, incredulously.
“No, not Spanish either. She was white. Yes, white as any of us. I don’t know what she was,” answered Graydon.
The pair stared at him, then at each other.
“There’s something damned funny about this,” growled Soames, at last. “But what I want to know is why you let her go, whatever the hell she was?”
“Because I thought we’d have a better chance if I did than if I didn’t.” Graydon’s own wrath was rising. “I want to tell you two that we’re up against something mighty bad; something none of us knows anything about. And we’ve got just once chance of getting out of the mess. If I’d kept her here we wouldn’t have even that chance.”
He halted. Dancre had stooped; had picked up something from the ground, something that gleamed yellow in the fire light. And now the Frenchman nudged the lank New Englander.
“Somet’ing funny is right, Soames,” he said. “Look at this.”
He handed the gleaming object over. Graydon saw that it was a thin golden bracelet, and as Soames turned it over in his hand he caught the green glitter of emeralds. It had been torn from Suarra’s arm, he realized, in her struggle with Sterrett.
“Yes, somet’ing funny!”, repeated Dancre. He glared at Graydon venomously, through slitted lids. “What that girl give you to let her go, Graydon, eh?” he spat. “What she tell you, eh?”
Soames’s hand dropped to his automatic.
“She gave me nothing, I took nothing,” answered Graydon.