Joe's curses were suddenly faint, for Joe's mouth and throat were dry and he had grown limp and dizzy and sick.
"You see, I got you, Joe. Got you dead to rights!"
"The brute!" whispered Lynette, her own flesh set twitching. "The horrible brute!"
"I don't believe he'd actually do that! He is just frightening Joe--bluffing...."
"You the sheriff!" cried Joe, desperate. "You the one bigges' robber in all these mount'!"
Again they heard the sound of the blow, struck fiercely by Jim Taggart, who, as he let all men understand, was the last man to brook an insult. And they heard Joe's slight body hurled back, so that he toppled and fell. And, thereafter, Taggart's brutish laughter. To-night, Jim Taggart, no matter how disgruntled he had been during so many hours, was at last enjoying himself. For to-night he was secure in his expectations.
"You bleed awful easy, Joe," he jeered. "Ought to go get your teeth straightened up, too! Cup of coffee? No? Then I'll take one; _gracias, mi amigo!_"
"So?" And Taggart, swinging heavily, knocked him down again, and then reached out for the can that held sugar and sweetened his coffee. Shipton sniggered.
"Me," acknowledged Taggart heavily, "I am what I am. But I never laid down for a Mex breed yet, and I ain't going to."
Joe lay where he had fallen. His body was pain-wracked, for when Jim Taggart struck in wrath he struck mightily, being a mighty man physically, and hard. Joe's swart skin had paled; his eyes started from his head; he feared, and not without reason, that a third blow like that would kill him. And he knew that Jim Taggart was no man to lie awake because he had killed another man.
"I got thirs'," said Joe thickly. He was sitting up, on the floor. "Give me cup water!"
"What did I tell you, Joe?" Taggart grinned at him. "I got you. Got you right."
"I burnin' up," said Joe weakly. "Maybe you killin' me. Give me drink water."
"I got you, Joe," said Taggart speculatively. No mockery now; just a vast, deep satisfaction. "I half believe one good kick in the belly would settle you and you'd tell all you know. I got a hunch...."
"Go slow, Jim." This from the avaricious Young Gallup. "No sense killing him, seeing you haven't found out a thing."