o
stick to him. We got to hang together, all of us. My evidence wouldn't
carry no weight; but there ain't a jury in South Texas that would
question yours. Adolfo done the right thing."

"I don't see it," Ed declared, petulantly. "What's the use of getting
me into trouble? There's the river; they can't follow you across."

But Urbina shook his head.

"You know he can't cross," Tad explained. "His people would shoot him
if he ever went to Mexico."

"Well, he'll be caught if he stays here. You daren't send that damned
Ranger on another blind trail. If Adolfo can't go south he'll have to
go north."

"Not on your life," affirmed Lewis. "If he runs it'll prove his guilt
and look bad for me. I'm the one they're after, and I don't stand any
too good, as you know. You got to go through with this, Ed."

"I won't do it," Austin asserted, stubbornly. "I won't be dragged into
the thing. You've no business rustling stock, anyhow. You don't have
to."

Urbina exhaled a lungful of cigarette smoke and inquired, "You won't
help me, eh?"

"No, I won't."

"Very well! If I go to prison you shall go, too. I shall tell all I
know and we shall be companions, you and I."

Austin's temper rose at the threat. "Bah!" he cried, contemptuously.
"There's nothing against me except running arms, and the embargo is off
now. It's a joke, anyhow. Nobody was ever convicted, even when the
embargo was in effect. Why, the government winks at anybody who helps
the Rebels."

"Oh, that is nothing!" Urbina agreed; "but you would not wish to be
called a cattle thief, eh?"

"What d'you mean?"

"You knew that the stealing went on."

"Huh! I should say I did. Haven't I lost a lot of horses?"

Lewis interposed, impatiently: "Say! Suppose Adolfo tells what he knows
about them horses? Suppose he tells how you framed it to have your own
stock run across, on shares, so's you could get more money to go
hifalutin' around San Antone without your wife knowing it? I reckon you
wouldn't care to have that get out."

"You can't prove it," growled "Young Ed."

"Oh! I reckon it can be proved all right," confidently asserted Lewis.

"Nobody'd believe such a thing."

"Folks are ready to believe 'most anything about you. Your wife would
believe it. Ain't Las Palmas in her name, and don't she give you so
much a month to spend? If them ain't facts, you lied to me."

"Yes!" Urbina supplemented. "I can swear to all that. And I can swear
also that you knew about