Everyone had just gone to bed, on a brilliant moonlight night in winter, when two men appeared in the yard calling for José: they had to speak to him. José, suspecting nothing, left his wife and two children, and went down. In a moment he called for the American manager. The manager, thinking it was some bargaining to be done, also came down. As he came out of the door, two men seized him by the arms, and said: “Don’t make a noise!”
“What’s amiss?” said Bell, who had built up Orilla, and had been twenty years on the lake.
Then he noticed that two other men had hold of José. “Come,” they said.
There were five Mexicans—Indians, or half-Indians—and the two captives. They went, the captives in slippers and shirt-sleeves, to the little office away at the end of the other part of the hotel, which had been the old ranch-house.
“What do you want?” said Bell.
“Give us the money,” said the bandits.
“Oh, all right,” said the American. There were a few pesos only in the safe. He opened, showed them, and they took the money.
“Now give us the rest,” they said.
“There is no more,” said the manager, in all sincerity; for José had not confessed to the thousand pesos.
The five peons then began to search the poor little office. They found a pile of red blankets—which they appropriated—and a few bottles of red wine—which they drank.
“Now,” they said, “give us the money.”