"Why they'd eat outer yer hand.
Which one of yer is Mendez?"
"He dead, _senor_," one fellow managed to answer in broken English.
"That heem lie dar."
"Well, that's some comfort," but without glancing about. "Now kick the
guns over this way, Matt, and touch a match to the lamp on that shelf
yonder; and, Jim, perhaps you better stamp out the fire; we'll not need
it any more. Great Scott! What's this?"
It was Miss Donovan, her dress torn, her hair dishevelled, a revolver
still clasped in her hand, half levelled as though she yet doubted her
realisation of what had occurred. She emerged from the blackness of
the rear room, advanced a step and stood there hesitating, her
wide-open eyes gazing about in bewilderment on the strange scene
revealed by the glow of the lamp. That searching, pathetic glance
swept from face to face about the motionless circle--the cowed Mexican
prisoners with uplifted hands backed against the wall; the three dead
bodies huddled on the floor; Moore, with the slowly expiring match yet
smoking in his fingers; the little marshal, erect, a revolver poised in
either hand, his face set and stern.
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