stop us."

"I won't argue that with you," the young lieutenant answered steadily.

"But you will have to let us pass. We are going inside. So why should
you take a lot of blows that you need not receive? And my countrymen are
excitable, some of them. I do not know that one or two of them could be
restrained from using a knife on you."

"They'll know more afterward, if they try it," laughed Hal, as though
the situation amused him. "But I would advise your friends not to try
it. You and they are going to move back, now, and thereafter any man who
gets within ten feet of me I am going to run through with my sword."

Hal tapped the hilt of his weapon lightly, then started to push the
rabble back. There were many mutterings. Lieutenant Overton did not know
at what instant he might feel the sharp prick of steel. If he felt any
fear of such a fate nothing in his cool smile betrayed him. The crowd
fell back, though there was no assurance that their smouldering wrath
might not flame up at any moment. Hal's life still hung on a thread. A
breath, and these sullen, excitable men would hurl themselves upon him.

In the meantime, Guarez, realizing that his friends might not come
immediately to his assistance, had scowlingly followed Captain Foster to
the haymow. That officer picked up a pitchfork and began to prod the
hay.

"I forbid this!" cried Guarez, in a deep, dramatic voice. Captain Foster
paid no heed. Soon the captain drove his implement through the hay, and
against something that gave back a resistance like that of soft pine.
With a skill that he had acquired as a boy on a farm the captain began
to pitch the hay.

"Stop! You have no right!" thundered the Mexican. But Captain Foster had
uncovered two packing cases and continued energetically with his work.

"Will you stop?" howled the Mexican, advancing upon the man in uniform.

"No," returned Foster briefly. "I'm here on business."

"Come in, my friends!" howled Pedro Guarez. "Never mind the young
tailor's model at the door."

The Mexicans outside heard, and the appeal frenzied them. Four or five
started toward the barn-door, the rest closing in behind them.

Swish! Lieutenant Hal's sword was again in the air.

"Who wants to come first?" demanded the Army boy dryly.

The rabble paused, then crowded back slowly. There was something in Hal
Overton's cold, steady, masterful eyes that awed them more than any
fears of their own.

Captain Foster tossed and threw h