Many times I have sat by and laughed to see the sweet pleasure of his little face as the foolish creatures squirmed. You should see a little frog tied by the leg and held in the blaze, Gabriel. It is amazing the life there is in such a contemptible thing."
Henderson was considering himself through all this talk by Simon. He did not doubt that the fellow was telling the truth about Roberto's vicious plans for revenge. He determined that Roberto never should lay lash to his back while he lived to lift a hand to fight. They might kill him in the struggle to drag him to Roberto's cross, but Roberto never should humiliate and degrade his living body. It might be there in the cell when they came to take him out to his chastisement, it might be in the open under the sky, but there would be a fight that they would remember and respect him for all their days. That he vowed.
"Yes, the devil has been to pay around this place today," Simon said, jumping off the subject of Roberto's fine humor as abruptly as he had begun it. "The governor has been here, demanding this wild Yankee girl, Helena Sprague, to be locked in jail at the pueblo and tried for treason against her country. Seven doctors! how Don Abrahan defied him to his face."
"If she is a Yankee she can't be a traitor to Mexico," Henderson said, ready now to talk to any length and draw from Simon everything he knew. It was the first word he had heard of the
