" said Perez. "What
else is there to say?"

"Oh, that?" returned Rotil. "My boys play tricks, and make jokes with
me like happy children. Yes, Chappo did bring words on paper,--foolish
words he might have written himself. I take no account of such things.
You are asked for the guns, and I get foolish words on paper of a
woman you would trade to me, and guns you would send me."

"Well?"

"Who gives you right to trade the woman, senor?"

"Who has a better right? She belongs to me."

"Very good! And her name?"

"You know the name."

"Perhaps, but I like my bargains with witness, and they must witness
the name."

"Jocasta--" There was a slight hesitation, and Rotil interrupted.

"She has been known as Senora Jocasta Perez, is it not so?"

"Well--yes," came the slow reply, "but that was foolishness of the
peons on my estates. They called her that."

"Very good! One woman called Jocasta Perez is offered to me in trade
with the guns. Jose Perez, have you not seen that the Dona Jocasta
Perez is even now mistress of Soledad, and that my men and I are as
her servants?"

Jocasta on the other side of the door strangled a half sob as she
heard him, and crept nearer the door.

"Oh, you are a good one at a bargain, Ramon Rotil! You try to pretend
the woman cannot count in this trade, but women always count,--women
like Jocasta!"

"So? Then we will certainly take count of the woman--one woman! Now to
guns and ammunition. How many, and where?"

"At Hermosillo, and it will take a week."

"I have no week to waste, and I do not mean the guns at Hermosillo.
You have five minutes, Jose Perez. Also those playful boys are
building a nice warm fire for the branding irons. And you will both
get a smell of your own burning hides if I wait longer for an
answer."

"Holy God!" shouted Conrad. "Why burn me for his work? From me the
guns have been hid as well as from you;--all I got was promises! They
are my guns,--my money paid, but he is not straight! Here at Soledad
he was to show me this time, but I think now it was a trick to murder
me as he murdered Juan Gonsalvo, the foreman who stored them away for
him."

"Animal!" growled Perez. "You have lost your head to talk of murders
to me! Two murders at Granados are waiting for you, and it is not far
to ship you back to the border! Walk with care, senor!"

"You are each wasting time with your truth telling," stated Rotil.
"This is no time to count your dead men. It is the cou