and blasphemed
all to no purpose. Furious at their repulse, the band were ready to
obey their leader's maddest wish. The word was "Burn them out." Ned
Harvey, crouching behind his barley-bags, felt his blood turn to ice
water in his veins when, with exultant yells and taunts, the corral
suddenly lighted up with a broad red glare. The match had been applied
to the big hay-stack close to the brush-covered shed, close to the
"leanto" under which so much inflammable rubbish was stored. It could
be a question of only a few moments, then they, too, would be a mass
of flames spreading rapidly westward. The stout adobe wall separating
the ranch proper from the sheds would protect the occupants from
direct contact with the flame, but what could save the roof?
Stretching from wall to wall were the dry, resinous pine logs that
formed the basis of the bulky structure; over these the lighter boards
of pine; and over all, thickly piled, dry as bone and inflammable as
tinder, heap on heap of brush. Once this was fairly ablaze the hapless
occupants of the rooms beneath might as well be under the grating of
some huge furnace.

High in air shot the leaping flames. Far and wide over the desert
spread the lurid glare. Screaming with terror, the women of Moreno's
household were already dragging into the corral their few treasures
and rushing back for such raiment as they could save. Far over at the
corral gate, where the bullets of the besieged could not find them,
Pasqual Morales and his exulting band were gathered, the chief lying
upon his _serape_ with bloody bandages about his leg, his followers
dancing about him in frantic glee, all keeping carefully out of range
of the black door-ways, yet three or four crack shots lay flat in the
sands, their rifles covering the now glaring fronts of the threatened
rancho, ready to shoot down, Indian-like, the wretched garrison when
driven out.

It was at this juncture that from somewhere in the middle room behind
Moreno's heavy door a voice was heard.

"Hand out the safe. Hand out your money now and we'll leave you in
peace. Every man of us will ride away, and you can come out as soon as
we are gone. Answer, for you have no time to lose."

"Answer him, you!" shouted Feeny to Mr. Dawes. "Send a shot through
and hit him if you can."

But before the clerk could drop the fan with which he was striving to
revive his fainting chief, the young fellow from Harvey's party, he
who was stationed at the