d as he fired his revolver into the air and cut off a
twig.

His rifle sang out twice. He waited, listening. Bushes crackled a few
yards behind him. Snatching up his revolver, he turned.

"Don't fire, Steve," said a low voice in perfectly good English.

Holcomb came out of the thicket toward him.

"Hello, captain. Nice large warm evening. You out taking the air?" asked
the cowpuncher.

"Did the rest get away?"

"Hope so. I had rotten luck. One of the guards plugged me in the leg, so
I thought I'd kinder keep the Legion busy while our friends make their
getaway."

"Can't you run?"

"Can't even walk." Yeager raised the revolver and fired. "Five. One left
now."

His eye met that of the captain. Each of them understood perfectly.

"That first shot of yours just missed Pasquale. Pity you didn't shoot
straighter."

"I had a dead beat on the old scamp, but I didn't want him. If Ruth gets
away, that's all I ask. He's all kinds of a wolf, but Mexico needs him,
I reckon."

"You're right about that, Steve. It wouldn't have done you any good to
lay him out. Here they come."

A man ploughed through the brush toward them. Another appeared to the
left. The face of a third peered around the trunk of an adjacent
cottonwood. Of a sudden the grove seemed alive with them.

Raising his gun, Steve nodded farewell to his friend.

A moment before Holcomb had had no intention of interfering, but an
impulse that was almost an inspiration gave springs to his muscles. He
leaped.

The fling of his arm sent the shot flying wildly into the night. Yeager
turned on him furiously as he picked himself up to his knees.

"What did you do that for?"

"I don't know--had no intention of it a moment before. Maybe I've done
you a bad turn, Steve. It came over me as a hunch that you were coming
out of this all right."

"The devil it did. Gimme your gun. Quick!"

It was too late. The Mexicans were closing with him. They flung him down
and pegged him to the ground with their weight. He made no attempt to
struggle.

"Get off of him. He's my prisoner," roared Holcomb, flinging one of the
Mexicans back.

They poured on him a flood of protesting Spanish. They had taken him
while he was still at large. The reward was theirs.

"Confound the reward. You may have it, but the man belongs to me. Get
up. He's wounded. Two of you will have to carry him."

"But if he tries to escape, senor--"

"Don't be a fool," snapped Holcomb curtly.

The