face of
four rifles, and he knew, too, that the best aid he could offer his
friend was to deflect the attention of the watchers from him.

He fell back promptly, running from boulder to boulder in his retreat,
pursued cautiously by the enemy. His ruse would have succeeded
admirably, so far as Dick was concerned, except for that young man
himself. He could not sit quiet and see his friend the focus of the
fire.

Wherefore, it happened that the attackers of Davis were halted
momentarily by a disconcerting fusillade from the rear. The "American
devil" had come out into the open, and was dropping lead among them.

At this juncture a rider galloped into view from the river gorge along
which wound the road. He pulled his jaded horse to a halt beside the old
miner and leaped to the ground.

Without waiting an instant for their fire to cease, he ran straight
forward toward the pursuing Mexicans.

As he came into the moonlight, Dick saw with surprise that the newcomer
was Don Manuel Pesquiera. He was hatless, apparently too unarmed. But
not for a second did this stop him as he sprinted forward.

Straight for the spitting rifles Don Manuel ran, face ablaze with anger.
He had covered half the distance before the weapons wavered groundward.

"Don Manuel!" cried Sebastian, perturbed by this apparition flying
through the night toward them.

Dick waited only long enough to make sure that hostilities had for the
moment ceased against his friend before beginning his search for the tin
box.

He quartered back and forth over the ground behind the burning house
without result, circled it rapidly, his eyes alert to catch the shine of
the box in the moonbeams, and examined the space among the rocks at the
base of the hill. Nowhere did he see what he wanted.

"I'll have to take a whirl at the house. Some of them may have carried
it back inside," he told himself.

As he stepped toward the door, Don Manuel came round the corner. At his
heels were Steve and the four Mexicans who had but a few minutes before
been trying industriously to exterminate the miner.

Don Manuel bowed punctiliously to Gordon.

"I beg to express my very great regrettance at this untimely attack," he
said.

"Don't mention it, _don_. This business of chasing over the hills in the
moonlight is first-class for the circulation of the blood, I expect.
Most of us got quite a bit of exercise, first and last."

Dick spoke with light irony; but one distraught hal