rupted Stewart. "You
got too free with your mouth once before! Now here, I'm supposed to
be consulting an officer of the law. Will you take charge of these
contraband goods?"

"Say, you're holdin' on high an' mighty," replied Hawe, in astonishment
that was plainly pretended. "What 're you drivin' at?"

Stewart muttered an imprecation. He took several swift strides across
the porch; he held out his hands to Stillwell as if to indicate the
hopelessness of intelligent and reasonable arbitration; he looked at
Madeline with a glance eloquent of his regret that he could not handle
the situation to please her. Then as he wheeled he came face to face
with Nels, who had slipped forward out of the crowd.

Madeline gathered serious import from the steel-blue meaning flash
of eyes whereby Nels communicated something to Stewart. Whatever that
something was, it dispelled Stewart's impatience. A slight movement of
his hand brought Monty Price forward with a jump. In these sudden jumps
of Monty's there was a suggestion of restrained ferocity. Then Nels
and Monty lined up behind Stewart. It was a deliberate action, even to
Madeline, unmistakably formidable. Pat Hawe's face took on an ugly look;
his eyes had a reddish gleam. Don Carlos added a pale face and extreme
nervousness to his former expressions of agitation. The cowboys edged
away from the vaqueros and the bronzed, bearded horsemen who were
evidently Hawe's assistants.

"I'm driving at this," spoke up Stewart, presently; and now he was slow
and caustic. "Here's contraband of war! Hawe, do you get that? Arms and
ammunition for the rebels across the border! I charge you as an officer
to confiscate these goods and to arrest the smuggler--Don Carlos."

These words of Stewart's precipitated a riot among Don Carlos and his
followers, and they surged wildly around the sheriff. There was an
upflinging of brown, clenching hands, a shrill, jabbering babel of
Mexican voices. The crowd around Don Carlos grew louder and denser
with the addition of armed vaqueros and barefooted stable-boys and
dusty-booted herdsmen and blanketed Mexicans, the last of whom suddenly
slipped from doors and windows and round comers. It was a motley
assemblage. The laced, fringed, ornamented vaqueros presented a sharp
contrast to the bare-legged, sandal-footed boys and the ragged herders.
Shrill cries, evidently from Don Carlos, somewhat quieted the commotion.
Then Don Carlos could be heard addressing Sheriff