away. It is some one else in
there."

"Some one else! But, no--that is impossible. Who else could it be?" As
he asked the question the boy's jaw fell slack. A horrible suspicion
pushed itself into his mind.

"Estupido!" he continued in growing terror. "Can it be--the general?"

"We shall see."

Culvera stepped to the door. It was locked and the key gone. He called
aloud. His only answer was a strange, muffled sound like a groan and the
beating of feet upon the floor.

With the butt of the sentry's rifle he hammered in the door at the lock
and by exerting all his strength forced the fastening. Lying in the
middle of the room, bound hand and foot, with his furious face upturned
to the moonlight, was Gabriel Pasquale. Culvera asked no foolish
questions, wasted no time. Kneeling beside his superior officer, he cut
the handkerchief that gagged him and the ropes that tied his limbs.
Together Ramon and the guard lifted him to his feet and held him for a
moment until his legs regained their power.

"What devil has done this outrage?" asked Ramon.

For a time Pasquale could only swallow and grunt. When the power of
speech returned, he broke into fierce and terrible maledictions. His
lieutenant listened in silence, extreme concern in his respectful face,
an unholy amusement bubbling up behind the deferential exterior.

"Then it was the Gringo?" he asked when his chief ran out of breath and
for the moment ceased cursing.

The insurgent leader went off into another explosion of rage. He would
cut his heart out while the American devil was still alive. He would
stake him out on the desert to broil to death beneath a Mexican sun.

Culvera showed the hat that he had punctured with his bullet. "Thus near
I came to avenging you, general. See! One inch lower and I would have
taken off the top of his head. Already Fuentes is pursuing him. Perhaps
this Yeager may be dragged back to justice."

Culvera asked no questions as to why the general was alone with a
condemned man at such an hour nor as to how the American had succeeded
in overpowering him. He understood that his chief's wounded vanity was
torturing the man enough to render curiosity unsafe. But the boyish
sentry did not know this. He ventured on a sympathetic question.

"But, senor, Your Excellency, how did this Gringo devil, who was
unarmed, take away your revolver and tie you?"

Pasquale, teeth clenched, whirled upon him. "You--dog of a peon--let
your prisoner wa