ible attempt to use his weapon. Behind the
group a white-faced young woman, of perhaps twenty, stood clutching at a
buffet for support.

"I think you had a wager on that you'd shoot me," smiled Lieutenant Hal.
"Instead, be good enough to hand your pistol to the sergeant."

"I'll----"

"You'll give your weapon up," Hal continued smilingly. "Sergeant,
relieve the gentleman of his pistol. He's too nervous to have one; he
might discharge it accidentally."

The purple-faced fellow, who was evidently an American, opened his mouth
as if to pour out a torrent of abuse. But the sergeant quietly wrenched
the weapon from his hand.

"Now, you Mexicans lay your rifles down on the floor," Hal continued,
turning to the swarthier men.

Hesitatingly they obeyed, for they realized that all hope of successful
resistance was now gone.

"What relation is this young lady to you, if any?" Hal asked, turning to
the man.

"He's my father," spoke the girl, instead.

"Then, madam, he may remain in the cabin with you, if he chooses.
Sergeant, clear all others out of the cabin."

"What do you think you are going to do here, you young counter-jumper?"
snarled the girl's father.

"We are going to take this craft and all it holds back to Agua Dulce as
a prize," Hal replied quietly. "Madam, you were not wounded in the
least, were you?"

"No," she answered, looking rather sheepish.

"Then we shall not need to make so much haste on your account. But we
have a Mexican up on the deck who may need attention in a hurry."

"The fellow on the deck is only a Mexican," sneered the purple-faced
one, all of his recent Mexican companions having been removed from the
cabin by the soldiers.

"He's a badly wounded man, whether he's an American, Mexican, Chinaman
or Hindu," Hal retorted. "All men are entitled to humane treatment by
soldiers. And I think I hardly need to remind you, sir, that you
yourself have deemed it worth while to be associated with Mexicans."

"Because business made it necessary," replied the American huskily, yet
in a lower voice. "Almost every dollar I have in the world is invested
in a part of Mexico that the _insurrectos_ hold and seem likely to go on
holding."

"The same old dollar excuse?" demanded Lieutenant Overton. "Are you
another of the men who have grown to think that the straight and narrow
path is found only in the space between the two parallel lines of the
dollar-sign?"

Then, turning, Hal went to the door o