so swiftly did it move. But it was not a gray streak--it
was Dick Lewis, who, after a few of his long strides, collared the
Ranchero with one hand and threw him to the ground, and with the other
seized the revolver he was trying to draw, and wrested it from his
grasp. Pierre struggled desperately, but to no purpose, for the trapper
handled him as easily as though he had been a child.

"Now, then, you tarnal Greaser," exclaimed Dick, "your jig's danced, an'
you must settle with the fiddler. If I only had you out on the prairie,
I'd larn you a few things I reckon you never heern tell on. Come here,
you keerless feller, an' tell me if you 'member what I said to you
yesterday! Whar's Frank?"

Before Archie had time to reply, an incident happened, which, had the
trapper been a less experienced man than he was, would have turned his
triumph into defeat very suddenly. He had more than one enemy to contend
with, and the first intimation he had of the fact, was a sound that
Archie had heard so often since his residence in California that it had
become familiar to him--the whistling noise made by a lariat in its
passage through the air. Before Archie could look around to discover
whence this new danger came, he saw the trapper stretched at full length
on the ground. For an instant his heart stood still; but it was only
for an instant, for Dick was on his feet again immediately, and Archie
drew a long breath of relief when he saw the lasso, which he feared had
settled around his friend's neck, glide harmlessly over his shoulder.
The trapper, from force of long habit, was always on the watch for
danger, and when he heard that whistling sound in the air, he did not
stop to look for his enemy, but dropped like a flash to avoid the lasso;
and when he arose to his feet his long rifle was leveled at a thicket of
bushes in front of him.

"Show yourself, Greaser!" cried Dick.

The concealed enemy obeyed without an instant's hesitation, and when he
stepped into the path, Archie saw that it was Antoine Mercedes.

"Thar's nothin' like knowin' the tricks of the varmints," said Dick,
coolly, as he handed his rifle to Archie, and proceeded to disarm
Antoine. "If I had been a greenhorn, I should have been well-nigh choked
to death by this time; but a man who has seed prairy life, soon larns
that his ears was made for use as well as his eyes. Now, little un,
whar's the rest of them fellers?"

While the trapper was engaged in confining his