er lips close to Alaire's ear. "Who are those people?"
she breathed.

"I don't know. They must be the ones who came in that strange
automobile."

Paloma chattered viciously: "Everybody in Texas is here. I wish we'd
thought to scatter tacks behind us."

Cautiously they swung the door back and looked out. The open space
along the river-bank was leveled by the moonlight; from Morales's
house, to their right, came the sound of voices. The women waited.

A few moments, then a number of men appeared. Paloma judged there were
at least a dozen, but she was too excited to count them. As they came
straggling toward the pump-house one of them called back:

"Morales! Put out your damned lights," Both women recognized Tad Lewis
as the speaker.

Alaire had stubbornly refused to charge her husband with any active
share in this evil business, but her faith in Ed suddenly vanished when
she heard him say:

"Hush! You're making too much noise. You'd better scatter out, too, for
there's no telling where they'll land." Alaire leaned weakly against
the door. "I'm going to leave, and let you-all attend to the rest," he
was saying. But Tad Lewis halted him as he turned from the group.

"Where are you going, Ed? You left your car back yonder by the road. I
almost ran into it."

"Eh? What are you talking about? My car is over by Morales's house."

"Senor Austin is in a great hurry," sneered some one in Spanish. "Once
more he leaves all of the fighting to his friends."

"That's Adolfo Urbina," panted Paloma. "I know him." Stung by this open
charge of cowardice, Austin began a voluble defense, but in the midst
of it General Longorio addressed him, sharply:

"You will stay here, senor. Nobody leaves this place."

"I told you I wouldn't be a party to the business," Ed declared, hotly.
"You forced me to come in the first place--"

"Yes! And now I force you to stay."

Longorio's stand appeared to please Lewis, who chimed in with the
words: "That's right, Ed. You've got to stick, for once in your life."

"What do you mean, you nearly ran into my car back yonder?" Austin
asked, after a moment.

"Ain't that your machine yonder by the thicket?" inquired Lewis. "If it
ain't, whose is it?" As no one answered, he started in the direction he
had indicated; but at that moment a man came running from the
riverbank, crying, softly:

"Look out! They come."

"I'm going to shoot," Paloma Jones gasped, but Alaire, who once again
heard the so