back and forth, laughing at the beautiful joke on the Gringoes.
Plop!--Plop!--Plop! and three of the four eggs targeted an accurate
twelve o'clock. Pete leaped and kicked viciously. His high heel
caught one choking Mexican in the jaw just as Brevoort jumped and swung
the single-tree. Pete grabbed up his belt and gun.

Brevoort had no need to strike again.

"You go see if the horses are saddled. I'll watch the door," said
Brevoort.

Arguilla was awakened from a heavy sleep by the sound of a shot and the
shrill yelp of one of his men. A soldier entered and saluted. "The
Americans have gone," he reported.

Arguilla's bloated face went from red to purple, and he reached for his
gun which lay on the chair near his bed. But the lieutenant who had
reported the escape faced his chief fearlessly.

Arguilla hesitated. "Who guarded them?" he asked hoarsely.

The lieutenant named the men.

"Take them out and shoot them--at once."

"But, Senor Comandante, they may not stand. The Americans have beaten
them so that they are as dead."

"Then shoot them where they lay--which will be easier to do."

CHAPTER XXIX

QUERY

Far out across the starlit gloom the two thoroughbreds raced side by
side. They seemed to know what was required of them. A mile, two
miles, three miles, and the night-fire of Arguilla's men was a
flickering dot against the black wall of the night.

Brevoort pulled his horse to a walk. "We done left 'em looking at each
other," he drawled.

"Two of 'em ain't," said Pete succinctly.

Brevoort chuckled. "I was tryin' that hard not to laugh when you
smelled them aigs, that I come nigh missin' my chanct. You sure are
some play-actor."

"Play-actor nothin'! I was doggone near sick. I kin smell 'em yet.
Say, I'd like to know what'll happen to them two Cholas."

"Ain't you satisfied with what we done to 'em?"

"Yep. But Arguilla won't be. I'd hate to be in their boots--" From
the south came the faint, sinister "pop! pop!" of rifle shots. Pete
turned quickly toward his companion. "Right now," he concluded,
shrugging his shoulders.

"We got trouble of our own," said Brevoort. "Brent tried to run his
iron on us--but he got hold of the wrong iron. Now the deal will have
to go through like The Spider figured. Mebby Brent knows that
Arguilla's men are at the Ortez--and mebby he don't. But we don't say.
We ride in and repo't that Ortez says O.K.--that his vaqueros are
comin' for