ck Johnson; "give me a light for my cigarette."

He puffed for a moment, then rose, stretching his legs. In a moment he
returned from the other room, the old shiny Colt's forty-five strapped
loosely on his hip. Jed looked him in the face with some anxiety. The
foreman was not deceived by the man's easy manner; in fact, he knew it
to be symptomatic of one of the dangerous phases of Senor Johnson's
character.

"What's up, Buck?" he inquired.

"Just going out for a pasear with the little horse, Jed."

"I suppose I better come along?"

"Not with your lame foot, Jed."

The tone of voice was conclusive. Jed cleared his throat.

"She left this for you," said he, proffering an envelope. "Them kind
always writes."

"Sure," agreed Senor Johnson, stuffing the letter carelessly into his
side pocket. He half drew the Colt's from its holster and slipped it
back again. "Makes you feel plumb like a man to have one of these
things rubbin' against you again," he observed irrelevantly. Then he
went out, leaving the foreman leaning, chair tilted, against the wall.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE CAPTURE

Although he had left the room so suddenly, Senor Johnson did not at
once open the gate of the adobe wall. His demeanour was gay, for he
was a Westerner, but his heart was black. Hardly did he see beyond the
convexity of his eyeballs.

The pony, warmed up by its little run, pawed the ground, impatient to
be off. It was a fine animal, clean-built, deep-chested, one of the
mustang stock descended from the Arabs brought over by Pizarro. Sang
watched fearfully from the slant of the kitchen window. Jed Parker,
even, listened for the beat of the horse's hoofs.

But Senor Johnson stood stock-still, his brain absolutely numb and
empty. His hand brushed against something which fell, to the ground.
He brought his dull gaze to bear on it. The object proved to be a
black, wrinkled spheroid, baked hard as iron in the sunshine of
Estrella's toys, a potato squeezed to dryness by the constricting power
of the rawhide. In a row along the fence were others. To Senor
Johnson it seemed that thus his heart was being squeezed in the fire of
suffering.

But the slight movement of the falling object roused him. He swung
open the gate. The pony bowed his head delightedly. He was not tired,
but his reins depended straight to the ground, and it was a point of
honour with him to stand. At the saddle horn, in its sling, hung the
riata