the dust!'"

"Skipper, you _wonder_! You brick!"

"Jimsy, I--there's no use talking about things that may never happen,
because _of course_ help will get here, but if it should not--if they
should rush us, and we couldn't keep them out"--her hoarse voice
faltered but her eyes held his--"you won't--you wouldn't let them--take
me, Jimsy?"

"No, Skipper."

"Promise, Jimsy?"

"Promise, Skipper. 'Cross my heart!'" The old good foolish words of the
old safe days, here, now, in this hideous and garish present!

With that pledge she was visibly able to give herself to a livelier
hope. "But of course Yaqui Juan got through to the Grants' _hacienda_!
Can you imagine him failing us, Jimsy?"

He shook his head. "He'll make it if any man living could." The Indian
had slipped through the _insurrectos_ in the first hour, as soon as it
had been known that the wires were cut. Unless the Grants, too, were
besieged, they would be able to telephone for help for _El Pozo_, and
if they were likewise in duress, Yaqui Juan would go on to the next
_rancho_,--on and on until he could set the wheels of rescue in motion.
"I wish to God I had his job. _Doing something_----"

Carter came into the _sala_. He was terrifyingly white but with an
admirable composure. "Steady, old boy," he said, putting his frail hand
on Jimsy's shoulder. "Sit tight! We depend on you. And you're doing"--he
looked at the decanter, as if measuring its contents with his
eye--"gloriously, splendidly, old son! I know the strain you're under.
You're a bigger man even than I thought you were, Jimsy."

Honor went away to sit with Mrs. King and the sick man and both boys
stared unhappily after her. "If Skipper were only out of this----" Jimsy
groaned.

"And whose fault is it that she's in it?" Carter snarled. Two red spots
sprang into his white cheeks.

"Why--Cart'!" Jimsy backed away from him, staring.

"Whose fault is it, I say?" Carter followed him. "If she hadn't been
terrified over you, if she hadn't the insane idea of duty and loyalty to
you, would she have come? Would she?"

Jimsy King sat down and looked at him, aghast. "Good Lord,
Cart'--that's the truth! That shows what a mutt I am. It hasn't struck
me before. It's all my fault."

"Whatever happens to Honor--_whatever happens to her_--and death
wouldn't be the worst thing, would it?--it's your fault. Do you hear
what I say? It's all your fault!" In all the years since he had known
him Jimsy had never s