They knew the secret of the communicating caves. And to this place, the City of Silence, as they named it, they brought their loot. Juan was with the rearguard. He was a good shot, it seems. But he had a poor horse and it had been wounded by a stray bullet. So he fell behind the rest in their eagerness, as they approached their stronghold and knew they were not followed. Indeed the mesa was sparsely settled then.
"It was with infinite detail that Juan Mendoza told me this story, with detail never contradicted. An interesting, colorful story, Mr. Sheridan, but I think that, so far, I have outlined sufficiently."
He had. Sheridan had seen a vision of the treasure wagons setting out, the over-confident guardians, the jesting, wages to be paid, drinks and gambling to be had in Pioche, their carelessness as they neared the pass. Then shots, from unseen marksmen. Falling men, stricken horses. The rush of the bandits, the dead left for the coyotes and the buzzards. He had glimpsed the robber stronghold with its women, its lawlessness. Quong was a conjuror of words, his style of speech, almost a monotone, had flawless technique in the art of story telling. Sheridan saw, too, Juan Mendoza, sidling like a crab among the patrons of the opium rooms, worshiping Quong, his god, who gave him surcease, telling him his secret.
"The entrance to their system of caves," went on Quong, "was at the end of a wide fissure, a sort of open tunnel close to a mock structure of white rock resembling a Spanish Mission. It was named, I
