are not. I happen to be on friendly terms
with a chief who is this fellow's superior. If the chief in charge here
should harm me and my friend should feel so inclined, he might ride up
here, and stand my enemy up against an adobe wall. The fellow knows
it--and is aware of my friend's rather uncertain temper. That temper, my
dear Janice, known to all who have ever heard of Juan Dicampa, and his
abundant health, is the wall between me and a possibly sudden and very
unpleasant end."

There was a great deal more to the letter, but at first Janice could not
go on with it for surprise. The clerkly writer with the abundance of
flowery phrases, Juan Dicampa was, then, a Mexican chieftain--perhaps a
half-breed Yaqui murderer! The thought rather startled Janice. Yet she
was thankful to remember how warmly the man had written of her father.

Much of what followed in her father's letter she had to transmit to the
bank officials and others of his business associates in her old home
town. But the important thing, it seemed all the time to Janice, was
Juan Dicampa.

She thought about him a great deal during the next few days. Mostly she
thought about his health, and the chances of his being shot in some
battle down there in Mexico.

She began to read even more than heretofore of the Mexican situation in
the daily papers. She began to look for mention of Dicampa, and tried to
learn what manner of leader he was among his people.

If Juan Dicampa should be removed what, then, would happen to Broxton Day?

CHAPTER XVI

ONE MATTER COMES TO A HEAD

That was a black week for Janice as well as for the young schoolmaster.
She could barely keep her mind upon her studies at the seminary.
Nelson Haley's salvation was the attention he was forced to give to his
classes in the Polktown school.

One or another of the four committeemen who had constituted themselves
his enemies, were hovering about Nelson all the time. He felt himself
to be continually watched and suspected.

Mr. Middler, who had been away on an exchange over Sunday, returned to
find his parish split all but in two by the accusation against Nelson
Haley. Mr. Middler was the fifth member of the School Committee, and
both sides in the controversy clamored for him to take a hand in the
case.

"Gentlemen," he said to his four brother committeemen in Massey's back
room, "I have not a doubt in my mind that you are all honestly
convinced that Mr. Haley has s