"Hell and its blazes to you! why do you grin?" demanded the other setting down the bottle from which he had taken a long and grateful drink, but quick as a cat the boy pulled the door shut, and slipped the bolt on the outside, and laughed aloud.
"Not this night will you be bridegroom for another man's wife, señor!" he called. "Also it is better that you put curb on your curses,--for the lady has a mind for a quiet night of sleep."
Marto rushed to the curtained window only to find iron bars and the glint of a gun barrel. Isidro held the gun, and admonished the storming captive with the gentle fatalism of the Indian.
"It is done under orders of the major-domo, señor. There is no other way. If your words are hard or rough to the ears of the lady, there is a bullet for you, and a hidden place for your grave. This is the only word to you, señor. It is given me to say."
"But--Gods, saints, and devils--hearken you to me!" stormed the man. "This is a fool's joke! It can't go on! I must be back at sunrise--_I must!_"
"You will see many suns rise through these bars if the padrone so pleases," murmured Isidro gently. "That is not for us to decide."
"To hottest hell with your padrone and you! Bring him here to listen to me. This is no affair of a man and a woman,--curse her witch eyes and their green fires! There is work afoot,--big work, and I must get back to Soledad. You know what goes over the trail to Soledad,--every Indian knows! It is the cache of ammunition with which to save the peon and Indian slave,--you know that! You know the revolutionists must get it to win in Sonora. A trap is set for tomorrow, a big trap! I must be there to help spring it. To you there will be riches and safety all your life for my freedom--on the cross I will swear that. I----"
"Señor, nothing is in my power, and of your traps I know nothing. I am told you set a trap for a lady who is in grief and your own feet were caught in it. That is all I know of traps," said Isidro.
Kit patted the old man on the shoulder for cleverness, even while he wondered at the ravings of the would-be abductor. Then he crept nearer the window where he could see the face of the prisoner clearly, and without the overshadowing hat he had worn on entrance. The face gave him something to think about, for it was that of one of the men who had ridden up to the Yaqui spring the day he had found Tula and Miguel in the desert. How should this rebel who rode on secret trails with Ramon Rotil be head man at Soledad for Rotil's enemy? And what was the trap?