you are American," said Chaves, in English, with a sinister
smile.

O'Connor shrugged, answering in Spanish: "I am Romany. Who shall say,
whether American, or Spanish, or Bohemian? All nations call to me, but
none claim me, senor."

The lieutenant continued to smile his meaning grin. "Yet you are
American," he persisted.

"Oh, as you please. I am what you will, lieutenant."

"You speak the English like a native."

"You are complimentary."

Chaves lifted his eyebrows. "For believing that you are in costume, that
you are wearing a disguise, Mr. American?"

Bucky laughed outright, and offered a gay retort. "Believe me,
lieutenant, I am no more disguised as a gypsy than you are as a
soldier."

The Mexican officer flushed with anger at the suggestion of contempt
in the careless voice. His generalship was discredited. He had been
outwitted and made to yield without a blow. But to have it flung in his
teeth with such a debonair insolence threw him into a fury.

"If you and I ever meet on equal terms, senor, God pity you," he ground
out between his set jaws.

Bucky bowed, answering the furious anger in the man's face as much as
his words. "I shall try to be careful not to offer myself a sheath for a
knife some dark night," he scoffed.

A whistle blew, and then again. The revolver of Bucky rang out almost on
the same instant as those of O'Halloran. Under cover of the smoke they
slipped out of the car just as Rodrigo leaped down from the cab of the
engine. Slowly the train began to back down the incline in the same
direction from which it had come. The orders given the engineer were to
move back at a snail's pace until he reached Concho again. There he was
to remain for two hours. That Chaves would submit to this O'Halloran did
not for a moment suspect.

But the track would be kept obstructed till six o'clock in the morning,
and a sufficient guard would wait in the underbrush to see that the
right of way was not cleared. In the meantime the wagons would be
pushing toward Chihuahua as fast as they could be hurried, and the rest
of the riders would guard them till they separated on the outskirts of
the town and slipped quietly in. In order to forestall any telegraphic
communication between Lieutenant Chaves and his superiors in the city,
the wires had been cut. On the face of it, the guns seemed to be safe.
Only one thing had O'Halloran forgotten. Eight miles across the hills
from Concho ran the line of the Chihuahu