"
From the general conversation at the table that evening Pete gathered
that queer visitors came to this place frequently. It was a kind of
isolated, halfway house between the border and Showdown. He heard the
name of "Scar-Face," "White-Eye," "Sonora Jim," "Tio Verdugo," a rare
assortment of border vagabonds known by name to the cowboys of the high
country. The Spider was frequently mentioned. It was evident that he
had some peculiar influence over the Flores household, from the
respectful manner in which his name was received by the whole family.
And Pete, unfamiliar with the goings and comings of those men, their
quarrels, friendships, and sinister escapades, ate and listened in
silence, realizing that he too had earned a tentative place among them.
He found himself listening with keen interest to Malvey's account of a
machine-gun duel between two white men,--renegades and leaders in
opposing factions below the border,--and how one of them, shot through
and through, stuck to his gun until he had swept the plaza of enemy
sharp-shooters and had then crawled on hands and knees to the other
machine gun, killed its wounded operator with a six-shooter, and turned
the machine gun on his fleeing foes, shooting until the Mexicans of his
own company had taken courage enough to return and rescue him.
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