"Threewit and Farrar," he reminded her.

"They'll have to take their chance. Besides, Pasquale isn't going to hurt them. There wouldn't be any sense in it. So there's no use us getting panicky."

"I don't reckon I'm exactly panicky, Daisy. But it won't do to forget that Pasquale is one bad hombre. Harrison is another, and he's got it in for the boys. We can't lie down and quit on them, can we? I notice they didn't do that with me."

"What good will it do for you to go and get trapped too? It's different with you. They've got it in for you down there. It's just foolhardiness for you to go back," she told him sharply.

"You're sure some little boss," he laughed. "I'm willing to be reasonable. If I can prove to you that I stand a good chance to pull it off down at Noche Buena, will you feel different about it?"

"Yes, if you can—but you can't," she agreed, flashing at him the provocative little smile that was one of her charms.

"Bet you a box of chocolates against a ham sandwich I can."

"You're on," she nodded airily.

"Better order that ham sandwich," he advised, mocking her lazily with his friendly eyes.

"Oh, I don't know. You're not so much, Cactus Center. I expect to be eating chocolates soon."

Her gay audacity always pleased him. He settled himself for explanations soberly, but back of his gravity lay laughter.

"You've got the wrong hunch on me. I ain't any uneducated sheepherder. Don't run away with that notion. Me, I went through the first year of the High School at Tucson. I know all about amo, amas, amat, and how to make a flying tackle. Course oncet in a while I slip up in grammar. There's heap too much grammar in the world, anyhow. It plumb chokes up a man's language."

"All right, Steve. Show me. I'm from Joplin, Missouri. When are you going to do all this proving?"

"We won't set a date. Some time before I leave."

Yeager walked from the studio to his rooming-place. Ruth Seymour met him on the porch and stopped him. It was the first time he had seen her since their return.

"Is it true—what Mr. Manderson says—that you are going back to Noche Buena?" she flung at him.

"I'm certainly getting on the society page," he laughed. "Manderson has a pretty good reputation. I shouldn't wonder if what he says is true."

The face beneath the crown of soft black hair was colorless except for the trembling lips.

"Why? Why must you go? You've just escaped from there with your life. Are you mad?"

"Look here, Miss Ruth. I've just had a roundup with Miss Ellington about this. I'm going to take a whirl at rescuing our friends. Pasquale can't put over such a raw deal without getting a run for his money from me. I'm going back there because it's up to me to go. There are some things a man can't do. He can't quit when his friends need him."

She was standing in the doorway, her head leaning against the jamb so that the fine curve of the throat line showed a beating pulse. Something in the pose of the slim, graceful figure told him of repressed emotion.

"That is absurd, Mr. Yeager. You can't do anything for them if you go."

"Everybody sizes me up for a buzzard-head," he complained whimsically.

The gravity did not lift from her young, quick eyes.

"If you go they'll kill you," she said in a voice as dry as a whisper.

"Sho! Nothing to that. I'm going down disguised. I'll be safe enough."

"I suppose ... nothing can keep you from going." A sob choked up in her throat as she spoke.

"No. I've got to go."

"You think you have a right to play at dice with your life! Don't your friends count with you at all?"

"It's because they do that I'm going," he answered gently.

Her troubled eyes rested on his. The protest in her heart was still urgent, but she dared go no further. Some instinct of maidenly reticence curbed the passionate rebellion against his decision. If she said more, she might say too much. With a swift, sinuous turn of the slender body she ran into the house and left him standing there.

* * * * *

Daisy sat at one end of the pergola mending a glove. It was in the pleasant cool of the evening just as dusk was beginning to fall. A light breeze rustled the rose-leaves and played with the tendrils of her soft, wavy hair. The coolness was grateful after the heat of an Arizona day.

The front gate creaked. A man was coming in, a Mexican of the peon class. He moved up the walk toward her with a slight limp. As he drew closer, she observed negligently that he was of early middle age, ragged, and of course dirty. Age and lack of soap had so dyed his serape that the original color was quite gone.

He bowed to her with the native courtesy that belongs to even the peons of his race. A swift patter of Spanish fell from his lips.

Miss Ellington shook her head. "No sabe Espanol."

The man gushed into a second eruption of liquid vowels, accompanied this time by gestures which indicated that he wanted food.

The young woman nodded, went into the house, and secured from Mrs. Seymour a plate of broken fragments left over from supper. With this and a cup of coffee she returned to the pergola.

"Gracias, senorita." The shining black poll of the man bowed over the donation as he accepted it.

He sat cross-legged among the roses and ate what had been given him. Daisy observed critically that his habit of eating was not at all nice. He discarded the fork she had brought, using only the knife and his fingers. The meat he tore apart and devoured ravenously, cramming it wolfishly into his mouth as fast as he could. A few days before she had fallen into an argument with Steve Yeager about the civilization of the Mexicans. She wished he could see this specimen.

The man spoke, after he had cleaned the plate, licked up the gravy, and gulped down the coffee. His words fell in a slow drawl, not in Spanish, but in English.

"Don't you reckon mebbe I could get a ham sandwich too?"

The actress jumped. "Steve, you fraud!" she screamed, and flew at him.

"Do I win?" he asked, protecting himself as he backed away.

"Of course you do. Why haven't we been using you up stage in the Mexican sets? You're perfect. How did you ever get your hair so slick and black?"

"I've been studying make-ups since I joined the Lunar Company," he told her.

"How about your Spanish? Is it good enough to pass muster?"

"I learned to jabber it when I was a year old before I did English."

"Then you'll do. I defy even Harrison to recognize you."

He gave her his Mexican bow. "Gracias, senorita."



CHAPTER XVI

THE HEAVY PAYS A DEBT

When Threewit and Farrar reached Noche Buena, Pasquale was absent from camp, but Culvera made them suavely welcome.

"Senor Yeager has recovered and was called away unexpectedly on business," he explained; adding with his lip smile, "He will be desolated to have missed you."

"He is better, then?"

"Indeed, quite his self. He nearly died from gunshot wounds, but unless he suffers a relapse he is entirely out of present danger."

"Shouldn't have thought it would have been safe to travel yet," Farrar returned.

He was uneasy in his mind, sensing something of mocking irony in the manner of the Mexican. It was strange that Yeager, wounded to death as his letter had said, was able in two days to be up and around again.

"We were anxious to have him stop, but he was in a hurry. Personally I did my best to get him to stay." Culvera's smile glittered reminiscently: "The truth is that he thought our climate unhealthy. He was afraid of heart failure."

Threewit scoffed openly. "Absurd. The man is the finest physical specimen I ever saw. If you had ever seen him on the back of an outlaw bronc, you'd know his heart was all right."

The door of the room opened and Harrison came in. He stopped, mouth open with surprise at sight of the Americans.

"Some of Mr. Yeager's anxious friends come down to inquire about his health, Harrison. Did he seem to you healthy last time you saw him?" the Mexican asked maliciously.

Like a thunderclap the prizefighter broke loose in a turbid stream of profanity. It boiled from his lips like molten lava from a crater. The raucous words poured forth from a heart furious with rage. The man was beside himself. He raved like a madman—and the object of his invective was Stephen Yeager.

And all the time the man cursed he stamped painfully about the room, a sight to wonder at. His face was so swollen, so bruised and discolored, that he was hardly recognizable. He had managed to creep into another suit of clothes after the doctor had dressed his wounds and sewed up his cuts, but these could not hide the fact that every step was a torment to his pummeled ribs and lacerated flesh. He was game. Another man in his condition would have been in the hospital. Harrison dragged himself about because he would not admit that he was badly hurt.

Culvera turned to the Americans and explained the situation in a few sentences. He was enjoying himself extremely because the vanity of his companion writhed at the position in which he was placed.

"Your friend Yeager was not pleasing to our general and was sentenced to be shot. He escaped in the night. Our companion Harrison, also I believe a compatriot and friend of yours, is a charmer of ladies' hearts, as you will perceive with one glance at his handsome face. Behold, then, an elopement, romance, and moonshine. 'Linda de mi alma, amor mia, come,' he cries. The lady comes. But, alas! for true love, the brutal vaquero follows. They meet, and—I draw a merciful curtain over the result."

Harrison was off again in crisp and crackling language. When at last his vocabulary was exhausted, he turned savagely upon Threewit and Farrar.

"I'll see Pasquale gets the right dope on you fellows too. You're a pair of damned fools for coming here, believe me. If the old man can't get Yeager, he'll take his friends instead. Didn't I tell you I'd make you sick of what you did to me, Threewit? Good enough. I've got you both where I want you now. You'll get plenty of hell, take my word for it."

Threewit turned with dignity to the Mexican. "I have nothing to say to this man, Major Culvera. But you are a gentleman. We have been deceived. I ask for an escort as far as the border to see us safely back."

Culvera was full of bland hospitality. "Really I can't permit you to leave before the general returns. He would never forgive me. When friends travel so far, they must be entertained. Not so?"

"Are we prisoners? Is that what you mean?" demanded Farrar bluntly.

The major shook his finger toward him with smiling deprecation. "Prisoners! Fie, what a word among friends? Let us rather say guests of honor. If I give you a guard it is as a precaution, to make sure that no rash peon makes the mistake of injuring you as an enemy."

"We understand," Threewit answered. "But I'll just tell you one thing, major. Our friends know where we are, and Uncle Sam has a long arm. It will reach easily to Noche Buena."

"So, senor? Perhaps. Maybe. Who knows? Accidents happen—regrettable ones. A thousand apologies to your Uncle Sam. Oh, yes! Ver' sorry. Too late to mend, but then have we not shot the foolish peon who made the mistake in regard to Senors Farrar and Threewit? Yes, indeed."

Culvera tossed off his genial prophecy with the politest indifference. The prisoners read in his words a threat, sinister and scarcely veiled.

"You're talking murder, which is absurd," answered Threewit. "We've done no harm to you or General Pasquale. We came here by mistake. He'll let us go, of course."

"You sent Yeager down here to spy about those cattle you lost. Now you've come down here buttin' in to see for yourself. I don't expect Pasquale is going to stand for any such thing," broke in Harrison.

Farrar looked the prizefighter straight in the eye.

"You're a liar and you know it, Harrison. Let me tell you something else. You've stood here and cursed Yeager to the limit. Why? Because he's a better man than you are. I don't know just what's happened, but I can see that he has given you the beating of your life. And he did it in fair fight too."

Harrison interrupted with a scream of rage. "I'll cave his head in when we meet sure as he's a foot high."

"No, you won't. He's got your goat. What I've got to say about Yeager is this. If you put over any of your sculduggery on us, he'll wipe you off the map no matter in what lonesome hole you hide. Just stick a pin in that."

The bully moved slowly toward Farrar. His head had sunk down and his shoulders fallen to the gorilla hunch.

"You've said enough—too much, damn you," he roared.

With catlike swiftness Culvera sprang from where he sat, flung his weight low at the furious man from an angle, and tipped him from his feet so that he fell staggering into a chair.

"None of that, amigo," said the Mexican curtly. "These gentlemen are guests of General Pasquale. Till he passes judgment they shall be treated with ver' much courtesy."

Panting heavily, Harrison glared at him. Some day he intended to take a fall out of this supercilious young Spanish aristocrat, but just now he was not equal to the task. He mumbled incoherent threats.

"I don't quite catch your remarks. Is it that they are to my address, Senor Harrison?" asked the young officer silkily.

Heavily Harrison rose and passed from the room without looking at any of them. For the present he was beaten and he knew it.

The Mexican smiled confidentially at his prisoners. "Between friends, it's ver' devilish unpleasant to do business with such a—what you call—ruffian. But ver' necessar'. Oh, yes! Quite so."

"Depends on one's business, I expect," replied Farrar.

"You have said it, senor. A patriot can't be too particulair. He uses the tools that come to his hands. But pardon! My tongue is like a woman's. It runs away with time."

He called the guard and had the prisoners removed. They were put in the same adobe hut where Yeager had been confined a few days earlier.

Threewit lit a cigar and paced up and down gloomily. "This is a hell of a fix we're in. Before we get out of here the old man will be hollering his head off for that 'Retreat of the Bandits' three-reeler."

The camera man laughed ruefully. "I ain't worrying any about the old man. He's back there safe in little old New York. It's Frank Farrar that's on my mind. How is he going to get out of here?"

The director stopped, took the cigar from his mouth, and looked across questioningly at him.

"You don't really think Pasquale will hurt us, do you?"

"No; not unless the breaks go against us. I don't reckon Pasquale has anything much against Yeager any more than he has against us. Of course, Harrison will do his darndest to make him sore at us. Notice how he tried to put it over that we had come about that bunch of cattle he stole?"

"Sure I did. But it is not likely that Harrison is ace high in this pack. What I'm afraid of is that the old general will soak us for a ransom. He's nothing but an outlaw, anyhow."

Within the hour they were taken before Pasquale. He was still covered with the dust of travel. His riding-gloves lay on the table where he had tossed them. His soft white hat was on his head. As rapidly as possible he was devouring a chicken dinner.

It was his discourteous whim to keep them waiting in the back of the room until he had finished. They were offered no seats, but stood against the wall under the eye of the guard who had brought them.

The general finished his bottle of wine before he turned savagely upon them.

"You are friends of the Gringo Yeager. Not so?" he accused.

It was too late for a denial now. Threewit admitted the charge.

"So. Maldito! What are you doing here? I've had enough of you Yankees!" he exploded.

Before Threewit had more than begun his explanations he brushed aside the director's words.

"This Yeager is a devil. Did he not crawl up on me unexpect' and strike me here with an axe?" He touched the back of his head, across which a wide bandage ran. "Be sure I will cut his heart out some day. Gabriel Pasquale has said it. And you—you come here to spy what we have. You claim my cattle. Am I a fool that I do not know?"

"We are sorry—"

The Mexican struck the table with his hairy brown fist so that the dishes rang. "Sorry! Jesu Cristo! In good time I shall see to that. If I do not lay hands upon this devil Yeager, his friends will do instead. Am I one to be laughed at by Gringos?"

Threewit spoke as firmly as he could, though the fear of this big, unshaven savage was in his heart. "We are not spies, general. We were brought here by the lie that Yeager lay here dying and had sent for us. In no way have we harmed you. Before you go too far, remember that our Government will not tolerate any foul play. We are not stray sheepherders. Our friends are close to the President. They have his ear and—"

Pasquale leaned forward and snapped his fingers in the face of Threewit. "That for your President and your Government. Pouf! I snap my fingers. I spit on them. Mexico for the Mexicans. To the devil with all foreigners."

He nodded to the guard. "Away with them!"

As they left they could hear him roaring for another bottle.



CHAPTER XVII

PEDRO CABENZA

The Patriotic Legion of the Northern States was drinking mescal and gambling for the paper money Pasquale had issued and rolling about in the dust with joyous whoops from each squirming mass. It was a happy Legion, though a dirty one. It let its chief do all the worrying about how it was to be fed and transported. Cheerfully it went its ragged way, eating, drinking, sleeping, card-playing, rolling in the dust of its friendly wrestling. What matter that many members of the Legion were barefoot, that its horses were scarecrows, that gunnysacks and ends of wires from baled hay and bits of frazzled rope all made contribution to the saddles and bridles of the cavalry! Was Pasquale not going to take them straight to Mexico City, where all of them would be made rich at the expense of the accursed Federals who had trodden upon the face of the poor? Caramba! Soon now the devil would have his own.

A burro appeared at one end of the hot and dusty street. Beside the burro limped a man, occasionally beating the animal on the rump with a switch he carried. The Legion took a languid interest. This was some farmer from a hill valley bringing supplies to sell to the patriotic army. Would his wares turn out to be mescal or vegetables or perhaps a leggy steer that he had butchered?

As he drew nearer it was to be seen that a crate hung from one side of the burro. In it were chickens. Balancing this, on the other side, were two gunnysacks. Through a hole in one of these pushed the green face of a cabbage. Interest in the new arrival declined. The chickens would go to the quarters of the officers, and cabbage was an old story.

When the burro was opposite the corral one of the sacks gave way with a rip. From out of the hole poured a stream of apples upon the dusty road. That part of the Legion which was nearest pounced upon the fruit with shouts of laughter. The owner tried to fight the half-grown soldiers from his property. He might as well have tried to sweep back an ocean tide with a broom. In ten seconds every apple had been gleaned from the dust. Within thirty more everything but the cores had gone to feed the Legion.

The vendor of food wailed and flung imprecations at his laughing tormentors. He cursed them fluently and shook a dirty brown fist at the circle of troopers. He threatened to tell Pasquale what they had done.

A harsh voice interrupted him. "What is it you will tell Pasquale?"

The army began to melt unobtrusively away. The general himself, accompanied by Major Ochampa, sat in the saddle and scowled at the farmer. The latter told his story, almost in tears. This was all he had, these chicken, cabbages, and apples. He had brought them down to sell and was going to enlist. His Excellency would understand that he, Pedro Cabenza, was a patriot, but, behold! he had been robbed.

He was at any rate a very ragged patriot. There was a hole in his cotton trousers through which four inches of coffee-colored leg showed. His shoes were in the last stages. The hat he doffed was an extremely ventilated one.

Pasquale passed judgment instantly. It would never do for word to get out that those bringing supplies to feed his army were not paid fairly.

"Buy the chickens and the cabbage, Ochampa. Pay the man for his apples. Enlist him and find him a mount."

He rode away, leaving his subordinate to deal with the details. Major Ochampa was the paymaster for the army as well as Secretary of the Treasury for the Government of which Pasquale was the chief. His name was on the very much-depreciated currency the insurgents had issued.

Until recently Ochampa had been a small farmer himself. He bargained shrewdly for the supplies, but in Cabenza he found a match. The man haggled to the last cent and then called on Heaven to witness that he had practically given away the goods for nothing. But when the sergeant led him away to enlist he was beaming at the bargain he had made.

Cabenza became at once an unobtrusive unit in the army. He could lie for hours and bask in the sunshine with the patient content of the Mexican peon. He could eat frijoles and tortillas week in and week out, offering no complaint at the monotony of his diet. He was as lazy, as hopeful, and as unambitious as several thousand other riders of the Legion. Nobody paid the least attention to him except to require of him the not very arduous duties of camp service. Presently Pasquale would move south and renew the campaign. Meanwhile his troopers had an indolent, easy time of it.

On the evening of the day after his enlistment Pedro Cabenza strolled across toward the prison where he had been told two Americans were held captive. Two guards sat outside in front of the door and gossiped. Cabenza, moved apparently by a desire for companionship, indifferently drifted toward them. He sat down. Presently he produced a bottle furtively. All three drank, to good health, to the success of the revolution, a third time to the day when they should march, victorious into the great city in the south.

They became exhilarated. Cabenza found it necessary to work off his excitement upon the prisoners. He stood on tiptoe, holding the window bars in his hands, and jeered at the men within.

"Ho, ho, Gringos! May the devil fly away with you! Food for powder—food for powder! Some fine morning the general will give orders and—we shall bury you in the sand by the river. Not so?" he scoffed in his own language.

One of the Americans within drew near the window.

"Listen," he said. "Do you want to earn some money—ten—twenty—one hundred dollars in gold? Will you take a letter for me to Los Robles?"

"No. The general would skin me alive. I spit upon your offer. I throw dirt upon you."

Cabenza stooped, in his hand scooped up some dust from the ground, and flung it between the bars.

One of the guards pulled him back savagely.

"Icabron! Know you not the orders of the general? None are to talk with the Gringos. Away, fool! Because of the drink Pablo and I will forget. Away!"

Cabenza showed a face ludicrously terror-stricken. The punishments of Pasquale were notoriously severe. If it were known he had broken the command he would at least be beaten with whips.

"I did not know. I did not know," he explained humbly, thrusting the liquor bottle at one of them. "Here, companero, drink and forget that I have spoken."

He turned and scurried away into the darkness.



CHAPTER XVIII

HARRISON OVERPLAYS HIS HAND

Through the barred window Farrar watched the guard drag Cabenza back. He was very despondent. They had been prisoners now nearly a week and could see no termination of their jail sentence in sight. The food given them was wretched. They were anxious, dirty, and unkempt. Though he would not admit it even to himself, the camera man was oppressed by the shadow of a possible impending fate. The whim of a tyrant regardless of human life might at any hour send them to a firing squad.

Threewit sat gloomily on the stool, elbows on knees and chin resting on his fists. He could have wept for himself almost without shame. For forty-five years he had gone his safe way, a policeman always within call. Not once had life in the raw reached out and gripped him. Not once had he faced the stark probability of sudden, violent death. Clubs and after-theater suppers and poker and golf had offered him pleasant diversion. And now—a cruel fate had thrown him in the way of a barbarian with no sense of either justice or kindness. He felt himself too soft of fiber to cope with such elemental forces.

"Look! What is that, Threewit?"

Farrar was pointing to something on the table that gleamed white in the moonlight. He stepped forward and picked it up. The article was a stone around which was wrapped a paper tied by a string.

"The Mexican must have thrown it in with the dirt. It wasn't there before," replied the director quickly.

Farrar untied the string and smoothed out the paper, holding it toward the moonlight. "There's writing on it, but I can't make it out. Strike a match for me."

His companion struck on his trousers a match and the camera man read by its glowing flame.

Keep a stiff upper lip. Cactus Center is on the job. Don't know when my chance will come, but I'm looking for it. Chew this up.

S. Y.

Farrar gave a subdued whoop of joy. "It's old Steve. He hasn't forgotten us, good old boy. I'll bet he has got something up his sleeve."

"Hope that greaser doesn't give us away to Pasquale or Harrison."

"He won't. Trust Cactus Center. He's bridle-wise, that lad is. I feel a lot better just to know he has got us on his mind."

"What do you suppose he is planning?"

"Don't know. Of course he has to lie low. But he pulled off his own getaway and I'll back him to figure out ours." The camera man was nothing if not a loyal admirer of the range-rider.

They talked in whispers, eager and excited with the possibility of rescue that had come. Somehow, of all the men they had known, they banked more on Steve Yeager in such an emergency than any other. It was not alone his physical vigor, though that counted, since it gave him so complete a mastery over himself. Farrar had seen him once stripped in a swimming-pool and been stirred to wonder. Beneath the satiny skin the muscles moved in ripples. The biceps crawled back and forth like living things, beautiful in the graceful flow of their movement. Whatever he had done had been done easily, apparently without effort. This reserve power was something more than a combination of bone and sinew and flesh. It was a product of the spirit, a moral force to be reckoned with. It helped to make impossible things easy of accomplishment.

* * * * *

The panic of Cabenza vanished as soon as he was out of sight of the guards. As he turned down toward the sandy river-bed a little smile lay in his eyes.

From the place where it was buried beneath the root of a cottonwood, he dug out a bandanna handkerchief containing several bottles, little brushes, and a looking-glass. Sitting there in the moonlight, he worked busily renewing the tints of his hands and face and also of the coffee-colored patch of skin that peeped through his torn trouser leg.

This done, he sauntered back to the little town and down the adobe street. A horseman cantered up to the headquarters of the general just as Pasquale stepped out with Culvera. The latter snapped his fingers toward Cabenza and that trooper ran forward.

"Hold the horse," ordered the officer in Mexican.

Cabenza relieved the messenger, who stepped forward and delivered what had been given him to say. The hearing of the man holding the horse was acute and he listened intently.

"Senor Harrison sends greeting to the general. He is in touch with the play-actor Lennox and hopes soon to get the Gringo Yeager. If Lennox plays false...."

The words ran into a murmur and Cabenza could hear no more.

The messenger was dismissed. Cabenza stooped to tie a loose lace in his shoe. Pasquale and Culvera passed back from the end of the porch into the house. As they went the trooper heard another stray fragment in the voice of the general.

"If Harrison crosses the line after him at night...."

That was all, but it told Cabenza that Harrison was negotiating with Lennox for the delivery of Yeager in exchange for Threewit and Farrar. The leading man was, of course, playing for time until Steve, under the guise of Cabenza, could arrange to win the freedom of the prisoners.

This would take time, for success would depend upon several dove-tailing factors. To attempt a rescue and to fail would be practically to sign the death-warrant of Farrar and Threewit.

Yeager, alias Cabenza, returned to the stable where he and a score of patriots of the Northern Legion had sleeping-quarters. He would much have preferred to take his blankets out into the pure night air and to bed under the stars. But he was playing his part thoroughly. He could not afford to be nice or scrupulous, for fear of calling special attention to himself.

As for the peons beside him, they snored peacefully without regard to the lack of cleanliness of their bedroom. The first day of his arrival Yeager had knocked a hole in the flimsy wall and had given it out as the result of a chance kick of a bronco. This served to let air into a building which had no other means of ventilation. It also allowed some small percentage of the various concentrated odors to escape.

The Arizonian was a light sleeper. But like some men in perfect trim he had the faculty of going to sleep whenever he desired. Often he had taken a nap in the saddle while night-herding. Fatigued from eighteen hours of wrestling the cattle to safety through a bitter storm, he had learned to fall easily into rest the instant his head hit the pillow. It was a heritage that had come to him from his rugged, outdoor life. So he slept now, a gentle, untroubled slumber, until daylight sifted through the hole in the wall at his side.

He was on duty that day herding the remuda, and it was not until late afternoon that he returned to camp. From a distance, dropping down into the draw which formed the location of the town, he saw a dust cloud moving down the street. At the apex of it rode a little bunch of travelers, evidently just in from the desert. Incuriously his eyes watched the party as it moved toward the headquarters of Pasquale. Some impulse led him to put his scarecrow of a pony at a canter.

The party reached the house of Pasquale and the two leaders dismounted. Yeager was still at some distance, but he had an uncertain impression that one of them was a woman. They stood on the porch talking. The larger one seemed to be overruling the protest of the other, so far as Steve could tell at that distance. The two passed together into the house.

It was not at all unusual for women to go into that house, according to the camp-fire stories that were whispered in the army. Pasquale was an unmoral old barbarian. If he liked women and wine the Legion made no complaint. The women were either camp-followers or visitors from the nearest town. In either case they were not of a sort whose reputation was likely to suffer.

Yeager cooked his simple supper and ate it. He sat down with his back to an adobe wall and rolled a cigarette. The peons, loafing in the cool of the evening, naturally fell into gossip. Steve, intent on his own thoughts, did not hear what was said until a word snatched him out of his indifference. The word was the name of Harrison.

"This afternoon?" asked one.

"Not an hour ago."

"Brought a woman with him, Pablo says," said a third indifferently.

"Yes." The first speaker laughed with an implication he did not care to express.

One of the others leaned forward and spoke in a lower tone. "This Harrison promised the general to bring back with him the Gringo Yeager. Old Gabriel is crazy to get the Yankee devil in his hands. Not so? Harrison brings him a woman instead to soften his bad temper, maybe."

The American gave no sign of interest. His fingers finished rolling the cigarette. Not another muscle of the inert body moved.

"A white woman this time, Pablo says."

The first speaker shrugged. "Look you, brother. All is grist that comes to the mill of Gabriel. As for these Gringo women"—He whispered a bit of slander that brought the blood to the face of Steve.

The peons guffawed with delight. This kind of joke was adapted both to their prejudices and their lack of intelligence. They were as ignorant of the world as children, fully as gay, irresponsible, and kindhearted. But they had, too, a capacity for cruelty and frank sensuousness that belongs only to the childhood of a race.

Presently Yeager arose, yawned, and drifted inconspicuously toward the stable that had been converted into a bedroom by the simple process of throwing a lot of blankets on the floor. But as soon as he was out of sight, Steve doubled across the road into the alley that ran back of the house where Pasquale was putting up.

The news about Harrison's return was disquieting. Ever since Yeager's second arrival at Noche Buena he had been gone. What did his appearance now mean? Who was the American woman he had brought back with him? Steve was inclined to think she was probably some one of the man's dubious acquaintances from Arixico. But of this he intended to make sure.

He passed quietly up the alley and into the yard back of the big house the insurgent general had appropriated for his headquarters. A light was shining from one of the back upper rooms. From it, too, there came faintly the sound of a voice, high and frightened, in which sobs and hysteria struggled.

By means of a post the Arizonian climbed to the top of the little back porch. Leaning as far as he could toward the window of the lighted room, he could see Pasquale and Harrison. The woman, whoever she might be, was in the corner of the room beyond his vision. The prizefighter showed both in face and manner a certain stiff sullenness. He was insisting upon some point to which there was determined opposition. As the general turned half toward him once, the range-rider saw in his little black eyes an alert and greedy cunning he did not understand.

The woman broke out into violent protest.

"I won't do it. I won't. If you are a liberator, as they say you are, you won't let him force me to it, general, will you?"

At the sound of that voice Yeager's heart jumped. He would have known it among ten thousand. Little beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. The primitive instinct to kill seared across his brain and left him for the moment dizzy and trembling.

There was a grin on Pasquale's ugly mug. His tobacco-stained teeth showed behind the lifted lips.

"If young ladies will insist on running away with officers of mine—"

"I didn't. Ask the men. I fought. See where I bit his hand," she protested, fighting against hysterical fears.

"So? But Senor Harrison says you were engaged to him."

"I hate him. I've found him out. I'd rather die than—"

Yeager caught the arm fling that concluded her sentence of passionate protest.

Pasquale, little black eyes twinkling, shrugged broad shoulders and turned to Harrison.

"You see. The lady has changed her mind, senor. What will you?"

"What's that got to do with it? She's mine. Send for a priest and have us married," the other man demanded bluntly.

"Not so fast, amigo," remonstrated Pasquale softly. "Give her time—a few days—quien sabe?—she may change her mind again."

Harrison choked on his anger. He was suspicious of this suavity, of this sudden respect for a girl's wishes. Since when had the old despot become so scrupulous as to risk offending one who had served him a good deal and might aid him in more serious matters? The prizefighter could guess only one reason for the general's attitude. His jealousy began to smoke at once.

"She can change her mind afterward just as well. If we're married now, then I'm sure of her," the prizefighter insisted doggedly.

Impulsively the girl swept into that part of the room within the view of Steve. She knelt in front of Pasquale and caught at his hand.

"Send me home—back to my mother. I'm only a girl. You don't make war on girls, do you?" she pleaded.

Had she only known it, the very sweetness of her troubled youth, the shadows under the starry eyes edging the wild-rose cheeks, the allure of her lines and soft flesh, fought potently against her desire for a safe-conduct home. The greedy, treacherous little eyes of the insurgent chief glittered.

He shook his head. "No, senorita. That is not possible. But you shall stay here—under the protection of Gabriel Pasquale himself. You shall have choice—Senor Harrison if you wish, another if you prefer it so. Take time. Perhaps—who knows?" He smiled and bowed with the gallantry of a bear as he kissed her hand.

"No—no. I want to go home," she sobbed.

"Young ladies don't always know what is best for them. Behold, we shall marry you to a soldier, one of rank. From the general down, you shall have choice," Pasquale promised largely.

Harrison scowled. He did not at all like the turn things were taking. "Not as long as I'm alive," he said savagely. "She's mine, I tell you."

The Mexican looked directly at him with a face as hard as jade. "So you don't expect to live long, senor. Is that it? We shall all mourn. Yes, indeed." He turned decisively to the white-faced girl. "Go to sleep, muchacha. To-morrow we shall talk. Gabriel Pasquale is your friend. All shall be well with you. None shall insult you on peril of his life. Buenos!"

With a gesture of his hand he pointed the door to Harrison.

The eyes of the two men clashed stormily. It was those of the American that finally gave way sulkily. Pasquale had power to enforce his commands and the other knew he would not hesitate to use it.

The prizefighter slouched out of the room with the general at his heels.

With a little gesture that betrayed the despair of her sick heart the girl turned and flung herself face down on the bed. Sobs shook her slender body. Her fingers clutched unconsciously at the rough weave of the blanket upon which she lay.



CHAPTER XIX

THE TEXAN

Steve tapped gently on the window pane with the ball of his middle finger. Instantly the sobbing was interrupted. The black head of hair lifted from the pillow to listen the better. He could guess how fearfully the heart of the girl was beating.

Again he tapped on the glass. With a lithe twist of her body the girl sat up on the bed. She waited tensely for a repetition of the sound, not quite sure from where it had come.

Her questing eyes found at last the source of it, a warning forefinger close to the pane that seemed to urge for silence. Rising, she moved slowly to the window, uneasy, doubtful, yet with hope beginning to stir at her heart. She formed a cup for her eyes with her palms so as to hold back the light while she peered through the glass into the darkness without.

Over to the left she made out the contour of a face, a brown Mexican face with quick, eager eyes that spoke comfort to her. Her first thought was that it belonged to a friend. Hard on the heels of that she gave a little cry of joy and began with trembling fingers to raise the window.

"Steve!" she cried, laughing and crying together.

And as soon as she had adjusted the window she caught his hand between both of hers and pressed it hard. Steve was here. He would save her as he had before. She was all right now.

"Ruth! Little Ruth!" he cried softly, in a whisper.

"Did you hear? Do you know?" she asked.

"Only that he brought you here, the hellhound, and that Pasquale—"

He stopped, his sentence unfinished. There was no need to alarm her about that old philanderer. Time enough for that if she scratched the surface and found the savage beneath.

"—Won't let me go home," she finished for him.

"But what are you doing here? How did Harrison trap you?"

"I had been strolling with Daisy Ellington after supper. It was not late—hardly dark yet. She stopped at the hotel to talk with Miss Winters and I started to walk home alone. I took the short cut across the empty block just below Brinker's. He was waiting among the cottonwoods there—he and two Mexicans. As soon as he stepped into the light I was afraid."

"Why didn't you cry out?"

"I didn't like to make a scene about nothing. And after that first moment I had no time. He caught hold of me and put his hand across my mouth. Horses were there ready saddled. He lifted me in front of him and kept my mouth covered till we were clear of the town. It didn't matter how much I screamed when we had reached the desert."

"I didn't think even Harrison had the nerve to kidnap an Arizona girl and bring her across the line. If he had happened to meet a bunch of cowpunchers—"

"He didn't start after me. It was you he wanted. But he found out you weren't in town and took me instead. All the way down he talked about you—boasted how he would marry me in spite of you and how he would take you and have Pasquale flay you alive."

Yeager lifted a warning finger. "Remember you have a friend here. Good-night."

He lowered himself quickly, slid down the porch post, and disappeared into the darkness almost instantly.

Ruth heard voices. One gave commands, the others answered mildly with "Si, Excellency." Dim figures moved about below, one heavy, bulky, dominating. He gestured, snapped out curt directions, and presently vanished. Two guards were left. They paced up and down beneath her window. She understood that Pasquale was providing against any chance of escape. Half an hour ago she would have shuddered. Now she could even smile faintly at his precautions. Steve would evade them when the right time came.

Her confidence in him, since it looked only to the results, was greater than that he felt in his own power. The range-rider saw the difficulties before him. He was alone in a camp of wild, ignorant natives who moved at the nod of Pasquale. When he let himself think of Ruth as a prisoner at the mercy of that savage old outlaw's whim, the heart of Steve failed him. What could one man do against so many?

He felt that she was perfectly safe for the present, but Yeager found it impossible to sleep in the stable. Taking his blankets with him, he slipped noiselessly out to the cottonwood clump back of Pasquale's headquarters. Here, at least, he could see the light in her window and be sure that all was well with her.

As he moved noiselessly from one tree to another which gave a better view of the window, Steve stumbled against the prostrate body of a man.

Some one ripped out a sullen oath and a grip of steel caught at the ankle of the cowpuncher.

Taken by surprise, Yeager was dragged to the ground.

"What are you doing here?" demanded a voice Steve recognized instantly as belonging to Harrison.

The prisoner made no resistance. He ran into a patter of frightened, apologetic Spanish.

"What's your name?"

"Pedro Cabenza, senor," replied the owner of that name. "It is so hot in the stable. So I bring my blankets here and sleep."

"Hmp!" Harrison took time for reflection. "Know where I put up?"

"Si, senor."

The prizefighter gave him a dollar. "Stay here. Keep an eye on that lighted window upstairs. If anything happens—if you hear a noise—if a woman screams, come and knock me up right away. Understand?"

The docile Cabenza repeated his instructions like a parrot.

"Good enough," Harrison nodded. "I'll give you another dollar when you come. But don't wake me for nothing."

"No, senor."

"And you'd better keep your mouth shut unless you want your head beat off," advised the white man as he left.

The one who had given his name as Cabenza grinned to himself. He was now Harrison's hired watcher. Both of them were in league to frustrate any deviltry on the part of Pasquale. He wondered what the prizefighter would give to know that he had his enemy so wholly in his power, that he had only to lay hands on him and cry out to doom him to a painful and a violent death.

Yeager dozed and wakened and dozed again. Always when he looked the light was still burning. Toward morning he saw the figure of Ruth in the window. When she turned away the light went out. He judged she had put her anxieties from her and given herself to sleep at last. But not until the camp began to stir with the renewal of life for another day did he leave his post and return to the stable.

During the morning he slept under a cottonwood and made up arrears of rest lost while on guard. About noon Harrison came down the street and stopped at sight of him. The man was livid with anger. Yeager could guess the reason. He had spent a stormy ten minutes with old Pasquale demanding his rights and had issued from the encounter without profit. From the place where Steve was sitting he had heard the high, excited voices. It had occurred to him that the protest of Harrison had gone about as far as it could be safely carried, for Gabriel was both a ruthless and a hot-tempered despot.

Harrison sat down sullenly without speaking and stared straight in front of him. He was boiling with impotent fury. Pasquale had the whip hand and meant to carry things his own way. Of that he no longer had any doubt. In bringing Ruth to Noche Buena he had made a great mistake.

"Do you want to make some money, you—what's your name?" he presently rasped out.

Yeager answered with the universal formula of the land. "Si, senor. And my name is Cabenza—Pedro Cabenza."

The prizefighter glanced warily around, then lowered his voice. "I mean a lot of money—twenty dollars, maybe."

"Gold?" asked the peon, wide-eyed.

"Gold. How far would you go to earn that much?"

"A long way, senor."

Harrison caught him by the wrist with a grip that drove the blood back. "Listen, Cabenza. Would you go as far as the camp of Garcia Farrugia?" The close-gripped, salient jaw was thrust forward. Black eyes blazed from a set, snarling face.

So, after all, the man was trafficking with the Federal governor all the time just as he was with the Constitutionalists. Yeager had once or twice suspected as much.

"To the camp of Governor Farrugia," gasped Cabenza. "But—what for, senor?"

"To carry him a letter. Never mind what for. You will get your pay. Is it not enough?"

"And—Pasquale?"

"Need never know. You can slip away this afternoon and be back by to-morrow night."

Cabenza shook his head regretfully. "No. I am one of the horse wranglers. My boss would miss me if I was not here. I cannot go."

The other man swore. At the same time he recognized the argument as effective. He must find a messenger who could absent himself without stirring up questions.

"Then keep your mouth clamped," ordered Harrison. "I may be able to use you here. Anyhow, I want you to be ready to help if I need you."

He slipped a dollar into the brown palm of the peon and left him.

Steve looked after him with narrowed eyes. "Mr. Harrison is liable to bump into trouble if he don't look out. He's gone crazy with the heat, looks like. First thing, he'll pick on the wrong greaser and Mr. Messenger will take the letter to Pasquale instead of Farrugia. That's about what'll happen."

Something else happened first, however, that distracted the attention of Mr. Yeager, alias Cabenza, from this regrettable possibility. A man rode into camp, followed by a Mexican leading a pack-horse. The first rider was straight, tall, and wide-shouldered; also he was deep-chested and lean-loined, forty-five or thereabout, and had "Texan" written all over his weather-beaten face and costume. At sight of him Steve gave a silent whoop of joy. A white man had come to Noche Buena, a Texan (he was ready to swear), and he wore his big serviceable six-guns low. Also, he carried on his face and in his bearing the look of reckless competence that comes only from death faced in the open fearlessly and often.

Inside of five minutes Cabenza had gathered information as follows: Adam Holcomb was a soldier of fortune who had fought all over South America and Mexico. During the Spanish War he had been a Rough Rider in Cuba and later had been a volunteer officer in the Philippines. The army routine had no attraction for him. What he liked was actual fighting. So the outbreak of the Revolution had drawn him across the border, where he had done much to lick the Constitutionalist troops into shape. Now he had come to Noche Buena to teach the artillery of the Legion how to shoot straight, after which they would all march south and take the great city with the golden gates. Personally this Gringo was a devil, of course, but Pasquale was a prince of devils whose business it was to keep all lesser ones in order. So, in the Spanish equivalent of our American slang, they should worry. Thus a comrade explained the Texan and his presence to Pedro.

Cabenza contrived to be in the way when someone was wanted to fill the water-jug of Holcomb. Ochampa, who for the moment had charge of the artillery officer, swooped down upon the peon and put him temporarily at the service of his guest to fetch and carry at his orders. So Pedro unpacked the belongings of the American officer and prepared what had to serve as the substitute for a bath. He was so adept at this that the captain privately decided to requisition him for his servant.

Having finished this and laid out towels, Cabenza brushed the boots of the captain outside while that gentleman splashed within the cabin. He chose the time while he was arranging the shaving-outfit on the table to convey a piece of information to Holcomb.

"What's that? An American woman—held captive at his house by Pasquale," repeated the soldier of fortune, astonished.

"A girl, not a woman. About eighteen, maybe," supplemented Cabenza, in Mexican, of course.

"A woman from the street, I reckon. And if you look into it you'll find she's here of her own free will."

Steve was now stropping a razor. His back was toward the officer, but without turning he could see him by looking in the glass.

"You've got the wrong steer, captain. She's as straight a girl as ever lived," answered Yeager in perfectly good English.

Holcomb sat up straight. "Turn round, my man," he ordered crisply.

The range-rider did as he was told. The light, blue-gray eyes of the officer bored into his.

"You're no Mexican," charged the Texan.

"No. Arizona is where I hang up my hat."

"What are you, then? A spy?"

"I reckon, maybeso." Steve admitted the thrust lightly. "Got time to hear all about it, captain?"

"Go ahead."

The range-rider told it, the whole story, so far as it could be related by him. Such details as his modesty omitted Holcomb's imagination was easily able to supply.

The Texan paced up and down the room with the long, light, military stride.

"And you say Pasquale has been with her all day—that he ate lunch with her and is riding with her now?"

"Yes. Just watch his eyes when he looks at her if you're in doubt about the old villain. There's a tiger look in them, and something else that's worse." Yeager chanced to glance out of the window. "Here they come now back from their ride. Why not meet them as they alight?"

The captain reached for his hat and led the way down the street. Cabenza followed him, a step or two in the rear. They reached headquarters just as Pasquale lifted Ruth from the saddle. He held her for a moment in his strong arms and grinned down at her frightened, fascinated eyes.

"Adios, chatita!" he murmured, his little eyes dancing with triumph.

She fled from him into the house, terror giving speed to her limbs.

Upon Holcomb the dictator turned eyes that had grown cold and harsh again.

"Welcome, captain, welcome, to the Northern Legion," he said brusquely, offering a gauntleted hand.

They went into the house together, Pasquale's arm across the shoulder of the Texan.

"Dios, I'm glad to see you, captain," the insurgent chief ran on quickly. "This riff-raff of mine can't hit a hillside. Hammer the artillery into shape and I'll say gracias."

"Yes. I see you have a countrywoman of mine visiting you," the American said quietly.

"From Arizona." The Mexican laughed harshly. "We should get together more, your country and mine. We should bind the States and the Republic together by closer ties. A man without a wife is but a half man. Captain, I shall marry."

It was common knowledge of the camp that in his outlaw days Pasquale had a wife and family. The sons were grown up now. The rumor ran that the wife had found a more congenial mate and was separated from Gabriel by common agreement. Holcomb made no reference to this free-and-easy arrangement.

"Congratulations, general. Is the lady some high-born senorita?"

"The lady you have just seen is my choice—the young woman from Arizona," answered Pasquale, flashing from under his heavy grizzled brows a sharp, questioning look at the Texan.

"Indeed! I shall be happy to meet the lady and wish her joy," replied Holcomb lightly.

"You shall, captain. She's a little reluctant yet, but Gabriel has a way of overcoming that. I shall be married on Saturday."

"Ah!"

The face of the Texan had as much expression as a piece of flint. Pasquale, watching him warily, wondered what he was thinking behind those hard, steel-gray eyes.



CHAPTER XX

NEAR THE END OF HIS TRAIL

Harrison strode up and down the room furiously. "Who in Mexico is this Pasquale?" he demanded, and then answered his own question: "Scum of the earth, a peon whipped for stealing whiskey, a hill robber and murderer. In my country they'd take the scoundrel and hang him by the neck."

"True, amigo,—all true," assented Culvera suavely, examining his cigarette as he spoke. "But it is well to remember that walls have ears, and therefore to whisper—when one speaks of Gabriel."

"I'm not afraid of him," boasted the American, but his voice fell.

"I am," differed Culvera frankly. "Ramon is fond of Ramon, so he chooses a safe time to pay his debts—and he does not advertise in advance that he is going to settle."

"Bah! You sit still and do nothing. But I—By God! I'll not stand it. He has given it out he will be married Saturday. We'll see about that. Maybe he'll be buried that day instead."

The dark eyes of the Mexican swept him with a sidelong glance. If he could do it without incurring responsibility himself, he was very willing to spur on the fierce passion of this man.

"Be careful, senor. Pasquale is dangerous."

"You know he is dangerous—to Ramon Culvera. Why don't you strike and be done with it?"

"The time is not ripe. Some day—perhaps—" He let a shrug of his shoulders finish the sentence for him.

"It's always manana with you Mexicans," sneered Harrison with a savage lift of the lip. "You want to play it safe all the time. Why don't you take a chance?"

"I play my own cards, senor," returned Ramon equably.

"You play 'em darned close to your stomach. Me, I go out on a limb oncet in a while."

"Be sure you don't stay out there—at the end of a rope," smiled the Mexican.

"They haven't grown the hemp yet that will hang Chad Harrison." The prizefighter leaned toward him, eyes shining. "If I pull it off and make my getaway—what then? Will you send the girl to me, wherever I am?"

"You mean, if you—"

"—Give Pasquale what's been coming to him for a long time."

The eyes of Culvera were slits of light. His face was a brown mask that covered an alert and wary attention.

"I didn't hear what you said, amigo. It is better that I shouldn't. But if I had charge of the army instead of General Pasquale my policy would be different. I would return this Arizona girl to her home."

"To her home!" broke in Harrison harshly.

"To her husband," amended the Mexican significantly, adding after an instant—"who is a good friend of mine."

"You'll stand pat on that, will you?"

"It would be my purpose to reward my friends—those who have helped the cause—if by any chance command of the Legion should fall to me."

Harrison glared at him suspiciously. "You're so smooth I don't know whether I can believe you or not. You'd sell your own father out for the right price."

"I pay my debts, senor—both kinds," suggested the Mexican, unmoved at this outburst.

"See that you do."

"Be sure I shall, amigo," returned Culvera, looking straight at him from narrowed eyes that told nothing.

The prizefighter took another turn up and down the room. He was anxious and harassed as well as driven hard by hatred and jealousy.

"The wolf is having me watched. His orders are that I'm not to be allowed to leave camp. I don't get any chance to see him alone. If you ask me, I think he's fixing to have me knifed in the dark," Harrison burst out.

"Shouldn't wonder," agreed the young officer with a pleasant smile. He lived in an atmosphere where such things were not uncommon, and on occasion could take a hand himself.

"Fat lot you care," complained the photoplay actor sullenly. "You wouldn't lift a hand to save your pardner."

Culvera patted him on the shoulder cheerfully. "What can I do? Do I not live under the shadow myself? Can I tell when the knife will fall on me? He is without bowels of mercy, this son of a thief. But this I know: if you are watched, you must not stay here. Gabriel will be suspicious lest we are plotting something against him. Good luck, amigo."

The heavyweight took away with him a heavy heart. He had reached the stage where his hand was against that of every man. Culvera he did not trust at all out of his sight beyond the point where the interests of the young Mexican were parallel to his. In the whole camp he had no friend, not even the girl for whom he fought. As for Pasquale, Harrison had told the truth. He believed the general had doomed him. Unless he struck first, he was a lost man. Why had he been fool enough to boast to the old scoundrel what he would do? His temper had robbed him of the chance to kill and then escape.

He passed down the street toward the river. A dozen boys and young men sat in the shadow of the adobe wall that fronted the road opposite one of the corrals. It chanced that Harrison dropped his handkerchief at this point and stooped to pick it up.

Thirty minutes later a barefooted youth came down to the river carrying an olla for water. Harrison lay sleeping under a cottonwood that edged the trail. One arm was outstretched so that the closed fist lay almost across the path.

The soldier boy whistled gayly as he walked. Oddly enough, just as he reached the sleeping Gringo, the outflung arm lifted abruptly from the ground for an inch or two. A little package shot four feet up into the air and was caught deftly by the barefoot trooper as it descended.

The lips of Harrison barely moved. "Ride to-night, Enrique. Colonel Farrugia will also reward you well."

"Si, senor," nodded Enrique, and went on his way.

The face of the boy was toward the camp on the return journey. The American was still fast asleep. The lad went whistling past him without any sign of recognition.

Several times during the next hour Harrison took a long pull from a bottle he carried in his coat pocket. After a time he rose and walked heavily down the main street of the village until he came to the house where Captain Holcomb had been put up.

The Texan was sitting on his porch smoking a pipe. Behind him, a few feet away, Cabenza was cleaning a rifle for his new master.

"I wanta talk to you about something, Captain Holcomb," announced the film actor.

The soldier looked at him steadily. "Go to it," he ordered curtly.

"This is private business."

Holcomb did not turn his head or raise his voice. "Pedro, vamos."

The feet of Cabenza could be heard hitting the dust as he vanished around the corner of the house.

Without beating around the bush Harrison came to his subject. He jerked a thumb over his right shoulder.

"It's that girl up at the house there I want to talk about."

"What about her?"

"He's got no business keeping her there. She's a straight girl."

"Is she?"

"Yes, sir. She is."

"Then why did you bring her here?" Holcomb's question was like the thrust of a sword.

"Because I was a fool."

"Better give things their right names. You were a damned villain."

A dull flush rose to the cheeks of the prizefighter. "All right. Let it go at that. I guess you're right. What I want to know now is whether you're going to stand for Pasquale's play. He's got one wife already—half a dozen, far as I know. You going to let him put this wedding farce over without a kick?"

"Can I stop it?"

"You can register a roar, can't you?"

"Would it do any good? Did yours?"

"You're different. He needs you to drill this ragged bunch of hoboes he calls an army. Pasquale has a lot of respect for you. He talked a lot about you before you came."

"If you want to know, I've already spoken to him about it."

"What did he say?"

"Gave me to understand that if I'd attend to my business he'd mind his. And I'm going to do it," concluded Holcomb with sharp decision.

"You mean you're going to lie down like a yellow dog and quit, that you'll let this wolf take that lamb and ruin her life! Is that what you mean?"

Holcomb sat forward in his chair, so that his strong, lean, sunburnt face was as close to the other man as possible. "You talk both like a coward and a fool. You brought the girl here against her will. If Pasquale had been willing to let you force her into a marriage with you, I wouldn't have heard a squeal out of you. But he butted in. He took her from you. Now you come hollering to me, you quitter. Instead of fighting it out to a finish, you run to me. Talk about yellow curs. Faugh!"

"What can I do?" exploded Harrison in a rage. "He has four men watching her room at night now. Every time I move his cursed spies follow me. There are two of them over there now. Pasquale won't even let me see him. He's aimin' to have me killed, I believe."

"Serve you right," the soldier of fortune flung at him as he rose from his chair. "Killing is none too good for your kind. Pity some one didn't stamp you out before you brought that little girl down here to this sink of perdition."

Harrison swallowed down his anger. "That's all right. I'll stand for it. If I didn't believe it myself, you'd have a heluvatime getting away with such talk. But it goes just as you lay it down. I'm a skunk and all the rest of it. Now, listen! I ain't such a four-flusher as to lay down my hand before I've played it out. See! I'm not through with Gabriel Pasquale. Watch my smoke. Him and me hasn't come to a settlement yet."

"Sounds to me like whiskey talk," answered the Texan scornfully. "Men who do the kind of things you have done don't have the guts to play out a losing game."

"Some do, some don't. By your reputation you're game. All right. Keep your eyes open, captain."

Snarling, the man turned away and walked down the street. Holcomb watched him go. There was something purposeful in the way the heavyweight moved. Perhaps, after all, he would make a fighting finish of it. The captain fervently hoped he would drag old Pasquale down with him before they wiped him off the map. But he knew the betting odds were all the other way.



CHAPTER XXI

A STAGE PREPARED FOR TRAGEDY

Not knowing when his opportunity might come, Harrison kept his horse saddled most of the time. He knew that extra mounted patrols were kept at the ends of the streets and at other points on the mesa surrounding the town, and that he would have to take a chance of being able to run the gauntlet in safety. If luck favored him, he might win past these. For one thing the Mexicans were very poor shots, a little the worst he had ever seen. It might be, too, that he would have darkness in his favor, though he could not count on this.

By Enrique he had sent to Governor Farrugia a map of the camp, giving detailed information as to the number and position of the troops and showing from what direction the camp could best be attacked. In his letter he had urged immediate action, on the ground that a part of the men were absent with Major Ochampa on a foraging expedition. If Farrugia rose to the occasion, he hoped in the confusion of the assault to escape with Ruth.

Meanwhile he waited, and the hours slipped away. It was now Friday noon, and the wedding was to be Saturday morning.

Four denim-clad troopers and a sergeant marched raggedly down the street and stopped in front of Harrison's adobe house.

"The general wishes to see the senor," explained the sergeant.

The American knew the crucial hour had come. This was the first move of Pasquale in the programme to destroy him. He made no protest, but stepped forward at once, leading his horse by the bridle. The sergeant was a little dubious about the horse, but his orders did not cover the point and he made no objection.

Pasquale was standing in front of his house on the porch, bow legs wide apart and hands crossed behind his back. Harrison stopped directly in front of him. The soldiers moved back a dozen yards.

"Well," demanded the heavyweight.

"I sent for you to explain something to me, sir," said the Mexican general harshly.

"What is it?"

"This letter and map."

Pasquale stepped forward, handed two papers to Harrison, and quickly stepped back till his back was against the wall of the house. Something in his manner stirred the banked suspicions of the American. Already his nerves were keyed to unusual tension, for he knew the moment of crux was hurrying toward him. Why had the troopers fallen back so far? Why was Pasquale so anxious to put a wide space between himself and his prisoner?

The eyes of the film actor, clouded with doubt of what was about to take place, fell to the papers in his hand. He was looking at the letter and the map he had sent to Governor Farrugia.

Instantly his mind was made up. But as the blue barrel of his revolver flashed into sight there came the simultaneous roar of a volley. The force of it seemed to lift Harrison from his feet. Before his sagging knees had touched the dust the man was dead.

Pasquale drew a forty-five and fired three times into the lax and huddled body. He nodded to the men in the smoke-filled windows upstairs.

"Come down and bury this Gringo dog's body," he ordered.

They trooped down noisily. Pasquale kicked the body carelessly with his toe. "He was a traitor to the cause. The proof is in that paper. Hand it to me, Juan."

The general read the letter aloud. "He would have betrayed us all but for the patriotism of a messenger who would not be bribed. The man deserved death. Not so?"

They shouted approval and added, "Viva Pasquale!" in an enthusiastic roar. Ramon Culvera, who had just arrived on the scene, led the cheering with much vigor.

From every house men, boys, and women poured. The streets filled with noisy patriots. Guns popped here and there to ventilate the energy of their owners. Troopers galloped up and down the road in clouds of dust shooting into the air as they rode. Boys who would have run their legs off to obey a whim of Harrison spat contemptuously upon the face of the "Gringo cabrone."

Drawn by the hubbub, Captain Holcomb hurried from his house. He looked down at the lifeless body four soldiers were carrying away and turned to Pasquale for an explanation.

The general handed him the papers that proved Harrison's guilt. "I have executed a traitor, captain. The dog would have sold us out to Farrugia. Is his punishment not just?"

Holcomb looked the papers over and handed them back to his chief. "He got what was coming to him," he answered quietly.

"I have witnesses to show that he was drawing his revolver to assassinate me at the very moment he was shot. My men were just in time."

"It was fortunate for you your men happened to be so handy," replied the American officer with just a suggestion of dryness.

For Holcomb knew, just as Yeager did, that the scene had been set by Pasquale for the killing. His men had been stationed in the windows above, unknown to the victim. The heavyweight had been tempted to reach for his weapon by the certainty that he had come to the end of the passage. Doing so, he had given the signal for his own death. Had he failed to do this, the Mexican general would have sprung the trap himself in another minute. Fortunately this had not been necessary. Pasquale was in a position to prove to the United States Government, in case it became inquisitive, that when the man had been confronted with his guilt he had tried to kill him and had been shot down red-handed.

Half an hour later Holcomb came into his house and found Steve cleaning a pair of revolvers. The captain tossed his hat on the bed and sat down.

"Up to us, looks like," he commented.

Yeager nodded silently.

"Harrison hadn't a look-in. The old scoundrel had the cards stacked," continued the officer.

"Yep. Chad sat in against a cold deck. He made a big mistake when he let the old man take the play."

"Everything fixed for to-night?"

"Far as it can be. We've just got to take a big chance and trust to luck being with us," answered Steve.

"Guess you'll have to make your own luck. I spoke to Pasquale about a game here to-night. He grabbed at the bait. Said he would bring Culvera and Ochampa. I'll make a long session of it so as to give you all the time you need."

"Better have a boy here to serve the liquor and cigars. If you should hear shooting, and Gabriel gets anxious about it, you can send the boy to find out what it's about. That will give us a few minutes more to get away."

"Sure your dope is strong enough?"

"The man who fixed it ought to know. He's a registered druggist at Phoenix," replied the range-rider.

Yeager had never before sat in the anxious seat as nervously as he did during the next few hours. His nature was not of the kind to borrow trouble. Usually he could accept responsibility without letting it worry him. But to-night he was playing for big stakes—his own life certainly was in the hazard, probably those of Farrar and Threewit, possibly that of the Texan. And what weighed with him more than all these was the fate of the young girl in the back room upstairs waiting with a leaden heart for this dreadful thing that was to befall her. It was in the game that a man must take his fighting chance. But a girl—and above all girls Ruth—the thought of it stabbed his heart like a knife.



CHAPTER XXII

A CONSPIRACY

In settling accounts with Harrison the Mexican general had prepared the scene, had arranged every detail of it carefully so as to eliminate any possible chance the heavyweight might otherwise have. Yeager had no intention of letting Pasquale fix the conditions against him as he had against the prizefighter.

"Old Gabriel was holding four aces and Chad only a busted flush. Pasquale knew it all the time. Harrison must 'a' guessed it too. But if he did, I don't see why he waited for the old man to spring his trap," said Steve.

"It's a matter of temperament, I reckon. Some fellows are game enough when you put 'em up against trouble good and hard, but they hang back and wait for it to come to 'em. I expect Harrison didn't know how to play his hand. Looked that way to me when he talked with me. Likely he figured he had better wait and see what happened," surmised the captain.

"He waited too long."

"Till it was too late to call for a new deal. He had to play those dealt him."

"Different here. We'll do the dealing ourselves, captain. Pasquale has been through the deck and taken out all the big picture cards, but I expect I can rustle up a six-full that will come handy." Yeager smiled as he spoke at the .45 he was bestowing about his person.

Together they set the table for poker, putting on it two new decks, one blue and one red, and a box of chips that had seen service in many a midnight fray. On a side table were cigars, cigarettes, and liquor in plenty. Holcomb intended to see that his guests were properly entertained while Steve played the bigger and more dangerous game outside.

The range-rider knew that the odds were against him, that any one of fifty trifling accidents might bring to failure the plan he had made. All he could do was to make his preparations as skillfully as he could and then try to carry them out coolly and with determination.

The Mexican boy who had been hired to act as an attendant on the card-players arrived and Yeager took his leave. The captain followed him to the porch.

"Good luck, Steve," he said quietly.

"Same to you, captain. We'll talk this all over across the line in God's country some time."

"Sure," nodded Holcomb. "Well, so-long."

The younger man answered the nod casually and turned away down the street. Neither of them thought of shaking hands. Whatever was to happen was all in the day's work. Both of them belonged to that type of Westerner which sees a thing through without any dramatics. That this happened to be a particularly critical thing had no effect on their manner.

Holcomb lit a cigar and sat down on the porch to wait for his guests. They came presently. First were Pasquale and Ochampa, rough and ready as to clothes, unshaven, betraying continually the class from which they had risen. Culvera dropped in after a few minutes. He had discarded his uniform and was in the picturesque regalia of the young Mexican cavalier. From jingling silver spurs to the costly gold-laced sombrero he was every inch the dandy. His manners were the pink of urbanity. Nothing was lacking in particular to the affectionate deference he showed his chief. It suggested somehow the love of a son and the admiration of a devoted admirer.

The general was riding a wave of exhilaration. He had trodden down another of his enemies and was about to take to himself the spoils of the battle. Still in his vigorous prime, he was assured the stars were beckoning him to take the place in Mexico City that neither Madero nor Huerta had been strong enough to hold. He promised himself to settle down to moderation, to have done with the wild drinking-bouts that still occasionally interfered with his efficiency. Meanwhile, to-night he was again saying farewell to his bachelor days. He drank liberally but not excessively.

Ochampa proposed the health and happiness of the bride. It was drunk with enthusiasm. The general gave them the United States, the sister republic to the north, and spoke affectingly of his desire to promote a better feeling between the countries by this marriage. The host had not expected his poker party to develop so much oratory, but he rose briefly to the occasion. The subject of his remarks was, "A United Mexico."

But it was Culvera who capped the climax. He rose, wineglass in hand, and waited impressively for silence. For five minutes his tongue flowed on in praises of the Liberator of the people. He heaped superlatives on extravagant approval after the fashion of our political orators.

"Need I put a name to this patriot and hero who has won the unbounded love and loyalty of my youth?" he asked rotundly. "Need I name the Bolivar, the Washington of Mexico, the next president of this great republic? If so, I but repeat the name that is on the lips of all the thousands of our people to whom he is as a father—Gabriel Pasquale."

Holcomb smiled behind the hand that stroked his mustache. There was nobody present who did not know pretty accurately how far Ramon's attachment to his chief went. Gabriel himself, who embraced him affectionately in thanks, had not the least doubt. But if he had no illusions in the matter, he did not intend on that account to warn his lieutenant prematurely that he was next on the list to Harrison.

Poker presently absorbed their attention. Holcomb was the genial host, watchful of their wants and solicitous that they should be supplied. No sign of anxiety betrayed that he was keyed up to a high nervous tension. He told stories, laughed at those of the others, high spaded for drinks (though as a matter of fact he was as host furnishing the liquor), made post-mortem examinations of the deck, and otherwise showed a proper interest. It was quite necessary that when Pasquale looked back over the evening with later developments in mind he should not be able to find any intimations that his host was accessory to the plan to escape.

Hour after hour slipped away. The captain began to let himself hope that the forlorn hope of Yeager had brought safety to his friends. Surely by this time he must either have won or lost his throw for liberty.

A single shot broke the stillness of the night.

Pasquale, dealing, stopped with a card in his hand.

"Funny thing how the guns of sentries are always going off accidentally," remarked Holcomb casually. "Boy, look to the glasses of these gentlemen."

The deal was finished. Culvera opened the pot. The captain stayed. Ochampa hesitated.

One shot, a second, and then a fusillade of them shattered the quiet.

Pasquale flung down his cards and rose hurriedly, overturning his chair. "Mil diablos! What's to pay?" he cried.

The others followed him out of the room and house. He ran down the street as fast as a boy. Already men were emerging from houses half dressed. The sound of shots came from back of the general's headquarters. Pasquale doubled around the house and vaulted a fence. He butted into an excited group and flung men to right and left.

"What's the matter?" he demanded.

A soldier pointed to the open window of the room that had been occupied by Ruth Seymour. "She's gone, Your Excellency."

"Gone! Gone where?" roared Gabriel.

"Heaven knows. Her friends have rescued her."

Pasquale broke into a storm of curses.



CHAPTER XXIII

TRAPPED

After leaving Holcomb, Yeager walked down to the river-bed, followed the bank for a couple of hundred yards, and crept forward on all fours through the alfalfa pasture to the barb-wire fence that paralleled the road at some distance. He crawled beneath the lowest wire and moved through the mesquite to a point from which he could see the building where Farrar and Threewit were held prisoners. Two guards with rifles across their shoulders paced up and down outside.

Here Steve lay motionless for about half an hour. He believed that before the poker game began some one of the party would drop around to see that all was quiet and regular in the camp. His guess was a good one. Pasquale himself, arm in arm with Ochampa, made the rounds and stopped for a moment to speak to the sentries in front of the prison. The man crouched in the bear grass could tell that Gabriel was in high good-humor. He jested with the men and clapped them on the shoulder jovially. He laughed as heartily at his own witticisms as they did.

"There shall be mescal to-morrow for the whole army to drink the health of the Liberator and his bride. See to it, Ochampa," he ordered as they walked away.

"Viva Pasquale the Liberator," cried the sentries in a fine fervor of enthusiasm.

Presently the man in hiding stole quietly to the road and advanced down it at a leisurely pace.

"Promising them mescal, eh?" he murmured. "Well, I'll bet a bird in the hand is worth twenty or most sixteen in the bush." He patted affectionately a bottle that lay snug in his pocket.

"Who goes?" demanded one of the prison guards as he approached.

"Pedro Cabenza."

Steve chatted with them for a few moments before he produced his bird in the hand. They told him of what Pasquale had promised. Slyly he looked around to see that they were alone and drew from his pocket the bottle.

"Ho, companero! Behold what I have. Gringo whiskey—better far than mescal," he cried softly as he handed the treasure to one of the guards.

The man glanced around hurriedly, even as had Cabenza, then tilted the mouth of the bottle over his lips and let a long stiff drink gurgle down his throat. He patted his fat paunch contentedly and handed the bottle to his companion. The second guard also drank deeply.

Cabenza put an arm across the shoulders of each and drew their heads close while he whispered confidential scandal about Pasquale and Ramon Culvera. The two men listened greedily, eager for more. It happened that there was no truth in the salacious tidbits which Pedro retailed, but he invented glibly and that did just as well.

The heads of his listeners began to nod. They murmured drowsy interjections and leaned more heavily upon his arms. Ineffectually they tried to shake off the lassitude that was creeping over their senses.

"Keep watch, brother, while I take just forty winks," begged one, and fairly thrust his rifle into the hand of Yeager.

The soldier staggered to the adobe wall and slumped down beside the door. His eyes closed, fluttered open again, shut a second time. They did not open. He was fast asleep.

The second guard sat down beside him and smiled up sleepily at the standing man. "Manuel sleeps on duty. He is—a fool. I do—not—sleep. No, I—I—"

His head drooped on his chest. Steve took the rifle that fell from his relaxed hand.

Instantly the American was tapping gently on the door. "Threewit—Farrar!" he called softly. "This is Steve."

There was the sound of quick footsteps. A voice within answered in a whisper.

"Yes, Steve. This is Frank."

From his pocket the range-rider took a bunch of skeleton keys. It was no trouble to find one that would unlock the door, but in addition to this fastening there was a padlock. With a hatchet which he had brought Yeager pried the staple out. In another moment the door was open.

"Help me drag these fellows inside," ordered the cowpuncher, taking command promptly. "Frank, tear one of those blankets into strips. We've got to tie their hands and feet and gag them. Shuck your coat, Threewit. You've got to wear this fellow's blouse and sombrero. You, too, Frank. It's Manuel's castaways for you. Move lively, boys. This is surely going to be our busy evening."

"What's the programme?" asked Farrar, doing what he was told to do.

Steve explained briefly. "Old Pasquale has got Ruth Seymour here at his house. He intends to marry her to-morrow. I don't mean he shall. A good friend of mine is entertaining the old scoundrel to-night and some of the other high moguls in camp. My notion is to slip into old Gabriel's headquarters and rescue Ruth."

"Has Ruth been here ever since she came down with Harrison that time he lied to her about you being wounded?" asked Threewit. "We were told you butted in and took her home."

"I did. Harrison went to Los Robles later and brought her by force. He was looking for me and bumped into her by chance. His idea was to marry her as soon as they reached camp. But Pasquale balked. He took a fancy to Ruth himself."

While Yeager talked his fingers were busy every moment. From long usage he was expert at roping and tying. Many a time he had thrown the diamond hitch while packing on mountain trails. His skill served him well now. He trussed the guards as if they had been packs for the saddle, binding them hand and feet so that they could not move.

"We heard that an American had been killed in camp to-day. We've been worried for fear it might have been you, Steve," said the camera man.

"It was Harrison. He tried to sell Pasquale out to Farrugia and the old fox got his letter. Pasquale accused him of his treachery and had him assassinated on the spot. Better pull that sombrero lower over your face, Threewit. And keep your hands out of the light as much as you can. They're too white for this section of the country."

"What if some one talks to me? I can't put over their lingo."

"Just grunt. I'll do what talking is necessary. All right. We'll make tracks, boys."

They stepped outside. Yeager relocked the door and drove the staple back into the wood with the end of his rifle by steady pressure and not by blows.

Steve led them through the bear grass into the pasture and across it to the river-bank. Here, under the heavy shadows of the overhanging cottonwoods, he outlined his plans.

Threewit spoke aloud his fears. "But, good Lord! what chance have we got? It's a cinch we can't put four more guards out of business without being seen. And if we are caught—" His voice failed him.

The cowpuncher looked at him, and then at Farrar. The camera man was pale, but his eyes met those of his friend steadily. Steve judged he would do to tie to, that his nerve would pull him through. But the director was plainly shaken with fears. He was not a coward, but the privations and anxieties of the past ten days had got on his nerves. His lips twitched and his fat hand trembled. His life had fallen in too soft and easy places for this sort of thing.

The cowboy reassured him gently, even as he rearranged his plans on the spot. "We're going to pull it off, but as you say there is a chance we won't make it. I'm going to leave you in the corral with the horses. If Frank and I should slip up and get caught you'll still have a chance to get away."

"I'm going through with it just the same as you boys," insisted the director shakily.

"You're going to do as I say, Threewit. I'm elected boss of this rodeo. One of us has got to stay by the horses to make sure they're ready when we need 'em. That's going to be you. You're to sit right steady on the job till we come. If you hear shooting,—and if we don't show up in a reasonable time after that,—light out and save your hide. Keep that star—see, the bright one close down to the horizon—keep it right in front of you all night. By daybreak you ought to be across the line."