erhaps. Maybe. Who knows? Accidents happen--regrettable
ones. A thousand apologies to your Uncle Sam. Oh, yes! Ver' sorry. Too
late to mend, but then have we not shot the foolish peon who made the
mistake in regard to Senors Farrar and Threewit? Yes, indeed."

Culvera tossed off his genial prophecy with the politest indifference.
The prisoners read in his words a threat, sinister and scarcely veiled.

"You're talking murder, which is absurd," answered Threewit. "We've done
no harm to you or General Pasquale. We came here by mistake. He'll let
us go, of course."

"You sent Yeager down here to spy about those cattle you lost. Now
you've come down here buttin' in to see for yourself. I don't expect
Pasquale is going to stand for any such thing," broke in Harrison.

Farrar looked the prizefighter straight in the eye.

"You're a liar and you know it, Harrison. Let me tell you something
else. You've stood here and cursed Yeager to the limit. Why? Because
he's a better man than you are. I don't know just what's happened, but I
can see that he has given you the beating of your life. And he did it in
fair fight too."

Harrison interrupted with a scream of rage. "I'll cave his head in when
we meet sure as he's a foot high."

"No, you won't. He's got your goat. What I've got to say about Yeager is
this. If you put over any of your sculduggery on us, he'll wipe you off
the map no matter in what lonesome hole you hide. Just stick a pin in
that."

The bully moved slowly toward Farrar. His head had sunk down and his
shoulders fallen to the gorilla hunch.

"You've said enough--too much, damn you," he roared.

With catlike swiftness Culvera sprang from where he sat, flung his
weight low at the furious man from an angle, and tipped him from his
feet so that he fell staggering into a chair.

"None of that, amigo," said the Mexican curtly. "These gentlemen are
guests of General Pasquale. Till he passes judgment they shall be
treated with ver' much courtesy."

Panting heavily, Harrison glared at him. Some day he intended to take a
fall out of this supercilious young Spanish aristocrat, but just now he
was not equal to the task. He mumbled incoherent threats.

"I don't quite catch your remarks. Is it that they are to my address,
Senor Harrison?" asked the young officer silkily.

Heavily Harrison rose and passed from the room without looking at any of
them. For the present he was beaten and he knew it.

The Mexican smiled co