e latter could not hurry him
there too fast to suit him.

One feature of the situation made him chuckle, and that was this: The
fiery lieutenant, intent first of all on his revenge, had given first
thought to the capture of the man who had made mincemeat of his vanity
and rendered him a possible subject of ridicule to his fellow officers.
So eager had he been to accomplish this that he had failed as yet to
notify his superiors of what had happened, with the result that the
captured guns had been safely smuggled in and hidden. Bucky thought he
could trust O'Halloran to see that he did not stay long behind bars
and bolts, unless indeed the game went against that sanguine and most
cheerful plotter. In which event--well, that was a contingency that
would certainly prove embarrassing to the ranger. It might indeed turn
out to be a good deal more than embarrassing in the end. The thing
that he had done would bear a plain name if the Megales faction won the
day--and the punishment for it would be easy to guess. But it was not of
himself that O'Connor was thinking. He had been in tight places before
and squeezed safely out. But his little friend, the one he loved better
than his life, must somehow be extricated, no matter how the cards fell.

The ranger was taken at once before General Carlo, the ranking army
officer at Chihuahua, and, after a sharp preliminary examination, was
committed to prison. The impression that O'Connor got of Carlo was not
a reassuring one. The man was a military despot, apparently, and a
stickler for discipline. He had a hanging face, and, in the Yaqui war,
had won the nickname of "the butcher" for his merciless treatment of
captured natives. If Bucky were to get the same short shrift as they
did--and he began to suspect as much when his trial was set for the same
day before a military tribunal--it was time for him to be setting what
few worldly affairs he had in order. Technically, Megales had a legal
right to have him put to death and the impression lingered with Bucky
that the sly old governor would be likely to do that very thing and
later be full of profuse regrets to the United States Government that
inadvertently a citizen of the great republic had been punished by
mistake.

Bucky was registered and receipted for at the prison office, after which
he was conducted to his cell. The corridors dripped as he followed under
ground the guide who led the way with a flickering lantern. It was
a grueso