, and
before obeying he wanted to have it on paper. So he took the risk of any
danger from delay in case the order was really all right, and scribbled
a few lines to Vandyke on a leaf torn out of his notebook----"

"A leaf torn out of his notebook!" I couldn't help echoing. "Perhaps it
was the one I gave him."

"Shouldn't wonder!" Tony went on, stolidly. "He says he repeated in
writing the command he'd just received, and begged Vandyke, if it was
correct, to confirm him in the same way. The messenger dashed off,
leaving March wondering like thunder what it all meant: whether there
was some fearful mistake, or whether there was a big crisis, and no time
for written orders. He could see, of course, that it might be possible,
and that Vandyke had ordered only those two guns to be fired just to
scare the Mexicans off from playing any trick they were at. The spot he
was to aim at suggested that explanation, for not much harm ought to be
done with a few shots directed that way. Not much of what you might call
'_material_ harm' I mean. But there was no end to the harm such an
incident could do, if there'd been nothing to provoke it. You see the
situation as March says he saw it, don't you?"

"Yes, I see. But what happened after that?"

"According to March, the orderly was back again in next to no time.
March had stopped where he was, waiting for him, as he didn't want to
give the snap away to me and the men till the last minute. And he was
hoping against hope, till he got the return message. It was verbal
again, in spite of his written request, and mighty peremptory, ordering
him to obey without any more nonsense. That's March's story. Not seeing
a way to get out of it, yet realizing the awful consequences should
there be anything wrong, March was going to pass on the order to load
and fire when he suddenly thought he'd compromise by firing blank only.
You see he was in an awful fix anyway, had to make an instant decision,
and did what he thought best at the moment, though in giving that order
to fire blank he was already disobeying the orders of his superior
officer. Vandyke's version is that he never sent any orders whatever.
That his orderly was with him in his car, and had never left it for a
minute. That March must have been deceived by some trick of
resemblance--a sort of 'Captain of Kopenick' (if you know that story);
getting off a hoax on him, a deadly hoax, meant to upset the whole
situation between the United Sta