ves
must be pretty well frazzled. If you let a little thing like this upset
you, how do you expect--"

"It ain't a little thing!" gritted Jack, loading his pistols hurriedly.
"That six-strand riata has got a different feel, a different weight--oh,
you know it's going to make all the difference in the world when I get
out there with Jose. Whoever took it knew what it meant, all right! Some
one--"

"Where's Surry?" A sudden fear sent Dade hurrying to the door. "By the
Lord Harry, if they've hurt Surry--" He jerked the door open and went
out, Jack hard upon his heels.

"I didn't think of that," Jack confessed on the way to the stable, and
got a look of intense disgust from Dade, which he mitigated somewhat by
his next remark. "Diego was to sleep in the stall last night."

"Oh." Dade slackened his pace a bit. "Why didn't you say so?"

"I think," retorted Jack, grinning a little, "somebody else's nerves are
kinda frazzled, too. I don't want you to begin worrying over my affairs,
Dade. I'm not," he asserted with unconvincing emphasis. "But all the
same, I'd like to get my fingers on the fellow that took my riata!"

Since he formulated that wish after he reached the doorway of the roomy
box-stall where Surry was housed, he faced a badly scared peon as the
door swung open.

"Senor--I--pardon, Senor! But I feared that harm might come to the riata
in the night. There are many guests, Senor, who speak ill of gringos,
and I heard a whisper--"

Jack, gripping Diego by the shoulders, halted his nervous explanations.
"What about the riata?" he cried. "Do you know where it is?"

"Si, Senor. Me, I took it from the senor's saddle, for I feared harm
would be done if it were left there to tempt those who would laugh to
see the senor dragged to the death to-day. Senor, that is Jose's
purpose; from a San Vincente vaquero I heard--and he had it from the
lips of Manuel. Jose will lasso the senor, and the horse will run away
with Jose, and the senor will be killed. Ah, Senor!--Jose's skill is
great; and Manuel swears that now he will truly fight like a demon,
because the prayers of the senorita go with Jose. Her glove she sent him
for a token--Manuel swears that it is so, and a message that he is to
kill thee, Senor!"

"But my riata?" To Diego's amazement, his blue-eyed god seemed not in
the least disturbed, either by plot or gossip.

"Ah, the riata! Last night I greased it well, Senor, so that to-day it
would be soft. And this mo