y stock grazing
round here to-night. I might wake up quick and make a mistake. Men look
alike in the moonlight--and we'll have a moon."

"It shall be as the senor says. It is fate."

"All right, amigo. But it isn't fate. It's making fool mistakes when you
or your countrymen tackle a job like Vaca tackled. Just get me a couple
of blankets. I'll sleep out here to-night."

Juan Armigo plodded to the adobe. The lamplight showed his face beaded
with sweat. He shuffled to an inner room, and came out with blankets on
his arm. Vaca lay on a bed-roll in the corner of the larger room, and
near him stood Ramon.

"The senor sleeps with the horses," said Armigo significantly.

Ramon bent his head and muttered a prayer.

"And if you pray," said Armigo, shifting the blankets from one arm to
the other, "pray then that the two horses that you borrowed may return.
As for your Uncle Jose, he will not die."

"And we shall be taken to the prison," said Ramon."

"You should have killed the gringo." And Armigo's tone was
matter-of-fact. "Or perhaps told him where you had hidden the gold. He
might have let you go, then."

Ramon shook his head. Armigo's suggestion was too obviously a question
as to the whereabouts of the stolen money.

The wounded man opened his eyes. "I have heard," he said faintly. "Tell
the gringo that I will say where the money is hidden if he will let me
go."

"It shall be as you wish," said Armigo, curious to learn more of the
matter.

At the corral he delivered Vaca's message to Waring, who feigned delight
at the other's information.

"If that is so, Tio Juan," he laughed, "you shall have your share--a
hundred pesos. Leave the blankets there by my saddle. We will go to the
house."

From the coolness of night, with its dim radiance of stars, to the
accumulated heat of the interior of the adobe was an unpleasant change.
The walls were whitewashed and clean enough, but the place smelled
strongly of cooking. A lamp burned on the oilcloth-covered table. Ramon,
wide-eyed with trepidation, stood by his uncle, who had braced himself
on his elbow as Waring approached. Waring nodded pleasantly and rolled a
cigarette. Jose Vaca glared up at him hungrily. The lower lip,
pendulous, showed his broken teeth. Waring thought of a trapped wolf.
Juan glanced from one to the other.

But the gringo seemed incurious, merely gazing at the pictures on the
walls; a flaming print of the Madonna, one of the Christ, a cheap
pho