watch and clothes. Now, what more do you want?"

"What more?" echoed El Tigre, softly. "Why, only a very little thing. I
want your life."

The last words were fairly hissed. All the mock courtesy dropped away,
and he stood revealed in his true character as a gloating fiend, his
hideous features working with hate.

That face maddened Dick. With a sudden movement, he threw off the guard
on either side, took one leap forward, and his fist shot out like a
catapult. It caught the sneering face square between the eyes, and the
chief went down with a crash. In an instant, Dick's sinewy hands were on
his throat and choking out his life.

But now the bandit crew, roused from their stupefaction, rushed forward,
and overpowered him by sheer force of numbers. They dragged him from the
prostrate form of the guerilla, and tied him to a tree close to the
bushes, on the very edge of the clearing. The Tiger's face was bleeding
from the smashing blow, when his followers raised him to his feet, and
his rage was fearful to behold. He drew his knife and was about to rush
on Dick, when the sight of two of his men, coming into the clearing with
a bag between them, reminded him of his original purpose. By a mighty
effort he restrained himself, but the ferocity of his face was appalling.

Dick, too, looked at the bag, as the men laid it on the ground. It was
moving. Moving not sharply or briskly, as it might, had it held fowls or
rabbits, but with a horrid, crawling, sinuous motion. A cold sweat broke
out all over him. Now he knew what the Tiger had meant, when he asked
him if he were by any chance a snake charmer.

A word from the chief, and two men came forward, holding forked sticks.
A third slit the bag with his knife from top to bottom. From the gaping
rent, two monster rattlesnakes rolled out. But before they could coil to
strike, each was pinned to the ground by the forked stick, pressed down
close behind the head. They writhed and twisted frantically, but to no
purpose. Then another man bent down and drove his knife through the tail
of each, just above the rattles. Through the wound he passed a thong of
buckskin and looped it on the under side. Then, in each case, the other
end of the thong was fastened securely to a stake, driven into the
ground. When the work was done, a distance of ten yards separated the
two stakes, and before each was a twisting reptile, wild with rage and
pain. A man stood in front at