"Heem--he shoot you?"

"Yes."

"Ha! You lik' da chance to shoot heem?"

"Waal, I had it, but I missed him. He fooled me a whole lot, fer he jest kept still behind his hoss, what I had salted, an' then he got in at me with his own bit o' lead."

"That mak' you hate heem! Now you want to keel heem?"

"Oh, I don't know! I don't opine I'm so mighty eager."

"Beel says he gif one thousan' dol' to man who shoot Frank Mer'well."

"That's a good lot."

"Beel he do it."

"No doubt o' that, I reckons."

"Mebbe you an' I haf the chance."

"Waal, not fer me! I quits! When a chap keeps my neck from bein'

stretched arter all I has done ter him--waal, that settles it! I opines I has a leetle humanity left in me. An' he thought I was dyin', too. I kinder thought so then, but I'm managin' ter pull along. Mebbe I'll come through."

The face of Pinto Pede showed that he was thinking black thoughts.

"Gif me da chance!" he finally said. "You no haf to do eet. Gif me da chance. I do eet, an' we divvy da mon'. Ha?"

"Don't count me into your deviltry."

"No count you?"

"No."

"What matter? You no too good. I see you shoot man in back."

"Mebbe you did; but he hadn't kept me from bein' lynched."

"Bah! Why he do eet? You fool! He want to turn you ofer to law."

"Mebbe you're right; I don't know."

"You safe yourself if you help keel him."

"Looker hyer, Pede, I'm a low-down onery skunk; but I reckon thar's a limit even fer me. I've struck it. This hyer Frank Merriwell made me ashamed a' myself fer the fust time in a right long time. I know I'm too onery to reform an' ever be anything decent, even if I don't shuffle off with these two wounds. All the same, I ain't the snake ter turn an' soak pisen inter Merriwell, an' you hear me. Others may do it, but not Big Monte."

"Bah! All right! You not get half! Yes; you keep steel, you get eet."

"What are you driving at?"

"Wait. Mebbe you see. All you haf to do is keep steel."

"Waal, I'm great at keepin' still," said Monte.

It was not far from morning when Merriwell re-entered that room.

Pinto Pede seemed to be sleeping, but Big Monte was wide-awake.

"h.e.l.lo!" exclaimed Frank. "So you're still on these sh.o.r.es. I didn't know but you had sailed out."

"Pard, I opine mebbe I may git well enough to be hanged, after all,"

grinned the big ruffian.

"Possibly you may," said Frank. "And the chances are you would be if I were to leave you alone long enough. I heard some of the boys talking.

They contemplate taking you out and doing things to you after I'm asleep. But they did not reckon that I would come here to sleep, where they cannot get their hands on you without disturbing me."

"That was right kind of you," said Monte. "How's Bill?"

"I think that Bill has had his fill for the present. Indications are that he has left the valley with his whole force, and we are not looking for further trouble from him in some time to come."

"Bill sh.o.r.e found hisself up against the real thing," said Monte.

Frank placed a blanket near the door, wrapped himself in it, and was soon sleeping soundly.

Big Monte seemed to fall asleep after a time.

Finally the Mexican lifted his head and listened. He looked at Monte, and then at Frank. Seeming to satisfy himself, he gently dropped aside his blanket and began creeping across the floor, making his way toward Merriwell. He moved with the silence of a serpent.

Now, it happened that Big Monte was not asleep, although he had seemed to be. The Mexican had not crept half the distance to Frank when the big man turned slightly, lifted his head, and watched. As the creeping wretch drew nearer to the sleeping youth the hand of Big Monte was gently thrust out from the folds of his blanket.

Pede reached Frank, and then arose to his knees. Suddenly he lifted above his head a deadly knife, which he meant to plunge into the breast of the unconscious sleeper.

At that instant a spout of fire leaped from something in the hand which Big Monte had thrust from beneath the blanket, and with the crashing report of the revolver Pede fell forward across the body of his intended victim, shot through the brain!

Frank was on his feet in an instant.

"What does this mean?" he cried, astounded, stirring the body of the Mexican with his foot.

"You gave me a gun," said Big Monte, "so that I might defend myself. It came in handy when I saw Pede gittin' keerless with his knife an' goin'

fer to cut you up."

"Was that it?" exclaimed Frank. "Why, he was going to stab me! And you saved my life by shooting him!"

"Which mebbe makes us some nearer square than we was," said Monte, "as you saved my life a leetle time ago."

CHAPTER IX.