firing a shot!" admitted Jack
quizzically, and consented.

"You'll surely want your gun this time!" Bob warned him.

"No," said Jack.

"But--"

"I have hung up my gun!" Jack said decisively. "We'll try to handle this
peacefully. Come on!"

"Well, we've got our guns, anyway!" Jim put in.

It was mid-afternoon, a slack hour for Pedro's kind of trade, and the
shanty was empty of customers when the impromptu vigilance committee
entered. Pedro himself was half dozing in the faro dealer's chair. His
small, ferret eyes flashed a spark at the visitors as he rose, but he was
politeness itself.

"Senores! It is great honor! Be seated, senores!" he said with eloquent
deference.

The very sight of him set all the ounces in Bob quivering in an outburst:

"No chairs for us! You fork over Gonzalez's money that you tricked
out of him!"

"I take Gonzalez's money! I? Senores?"

"It's a hundred and twenty dollars that he earned honestly, and the
quicker you lay your hands on it the better for you!" Bob roared back.

Pedro was quite impassive.

"Senores, if Gonzalez need money--senores, I honest man! Senores, sit
down! We talk!" Pedro dropped back into his chair and his hand, with
cat-like quickness, shot under the faro table.

Jack had come through the door after Jim and Bob. He was standing a
little behind them, and while they had been watching Pedro's face he had
watched Pedro's movements.

"Pedro, take your hand out from under the table and without your gun!"
said Jack; and Jim Galway caught a thrill in Jack's voice that he had
heard in the _arroyo_.

Pedro looked into Senor Don't Care's eyes and saw a bead, though they
were not looking along the glint of a revolver barrel.

"_Si_, senor!" said Pedro, settling back in the chair with palms out in
intimation of his pacific intentions.

"Now, Pedro, you have Gonzalez's money, haven't you?" Jack went on, in
the reasoning fashion that he had adopted to Leddy in the store. "And
you aren't going to make yourself or Bob trouble. You are going to
give it back!"

"_Si_, senor!" said Pedro wincing.

While he was producing the money and counting it, his furtive glance kept
watch of Jack. Then, as the committee turned to go, he suddenly exclaimed
with angry surprise and disillusion:

"You got no gun!"

While Jim and Bob waited for Jack to precede them out of the door Jim had
time to note Pedro's baleful, piercing look at Jack's back.

"Just as I told you, Jack--and