Culvera rose, his knuckles pressing against the table. There was a faint smile of triumph, on his masked, immobile face.

"Farewell, Senor Yeager," he said softly. "After all, it's a world full of hardship and unpleasantness. You're well rid of it."

Steve knew his sole appeal lay in Pasquale. Ochampo was a nonent.i.ty.

Both Harrison and Culvera had already condemned him to death. He turned quietly to the insurgent leader.

"How about it, general? Do I get a pa.s.s to Kingdom Come--because I stood by a half-grown kid when two blacklegs were robbing him?"

"You shot Mendoza, eh?" demanded Pasquale, his heavy brows knit in a frown.

"No; I helped the boy escape who did."

"You were both employed by the enemy to murder him and Culvera--not so?"

"Nothing of the sort. Young Seymour was in a poker game with Culvera and Mendoza. They were cross-lifting him--and playing with a cold deck at that. I warned the kid. They began shooting. I could have killed either of them, but I blew out the lights instead. In self-defense the boy shot Mendoza. We escaped through the door. The trouble was none of our seeking."

Culvera shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands in a gesture of bland denial. "Lies! All lies, general. Have I not already told you the truth?"

Coldly Pasquale p.r.o.nounced judgment. "What matter which one shot Mendoza. Both were firing. Both escaped together. Both are equally guilty." He clapped his hands. A trooper entered. "'Tonio, get a guard and take this man to prison. See that he is kept safe. To-morrow at dawn he will be shot."

The trooper withdrew. Pasquale continued evenly. "We have one rule, Senor Yeager. He who kills one of us is our enemy. If we capture him, that man dies. Fate has shaken the dice and they fall against you. So be it. You pay forfeit."

Yeager nodded. He wasted no breath in useless protest against the decision of this man of iron. What must be, must. A plea for mercy or for a reversal of judgment would be mere weakness.

"If that's the way you play the game there's no use hollering. I'll take my medicine, because I must. But I'll just take one little flyer of a guess at the future, general. If you don't put friend Culvera out of business, it will presently be, 'Good-night, Pasquale.' He's a right anxious and ambitious little lieutenant, I shouldn't wonder."

Harrison triumphed openly. He followed out of the house the file of soldiers who took his enemy away.

"Told you I'd git even a-plenty, didn't I?" he jeered. "Told you I'd make you sweat blood, Mister Yeager. Good enough. You'll see me in a box right off the stage to-morrow morning when the execution set is pulled off. Adios, my friend!"

The cowpuncher was thrust into a one-room, flat-roofed adobe hut. The door was locked and a guard set outside. The prison had for furniture a three-legged stool and a rough, home-made table. In one corner lay a couple of blankets upon some straw to serve for a bed. The walls of the house, probably a hundred years old at least, were of plain, unplastered adobe. The fireplace was large, but one glance up the narrow chimney proved the futility of any hope of escape in that direction.

He was caught, like a rat in a trap. Yet somehow he did not feel as if it could be true that he was to be taken out at daybreak and shot. It must be some ridiculous joke Fate was playing on him. Something would turn up yet to save him.

But as the hours wore away the grim reality of his position came nearer home to him. He had only a few hours left. From his pocket he took a notebook and a pencil. It was possible that Pasquale would let him send a letter through to Threewit if it gave some natural explanation of his death, one that would relieve him of any responsibility. Steve tore out a page and wrote, standing under the little shaft of moonlight that poured through the small barred window:--

Fifteen minutes ago [so he wrote] I accidentally shot myself while target-practicing here in camp. They say I won't live more than a few hours. By the courtesy of General Pasquale I am getting a letter through to you, which is to be sent after my death. Give bearer ten dollars in gold.

Say good-bye for me to Frank, Daisy, and the rest. _Bust up that marriage if you can_.

Adios, my friend.

STEVE YEAGER.

He was searching in his pocket for an envelope when there came a sound that held him rigid. Some one was very carefully unlocking the door of his prison from the outside. Stealthily he drew back into the deep shadow at the farther end of the room, picking up noiselessly by one leg the stool by the table. It was possible that some one had been sent to murder him.

The grinding of the key ceased. Slowly the door opened inch by inch. A man's head was thrust through the opening. After a long time of silence a figure followed the head and the door was closed again.

"You may put down that weapon, Senor Yeager. I have not come to knife you."

The lower half of the man's face was covered by a fold of his serape, the upper part was shaded by his sombrero. Only the glittering eyes could be plainly seen.

"Why have you come?"

"To talk with you--perhaps to save you. Quien sabe?"

Yeager put down the stool and gave it a shove across the floor. "Will you take a seat, general? Sorry I can't offer you refreshments, but the truth is I'm not exactly master in my own house."

Pasquale dropped the serape from his face and moved forward. "So you knew me?"

"Yes."

"How much will you give for your life?" demanded the Mexican abruptly, sitting down on the stool with his back to the table.

"As much as any man."

The general eyed him narrowly. One sinewy brown hand caressed the b.u.t.t of a revolver hanging at his hip.

"Who paid you to murder Culvera and Mendoza--not Farrugia, surely?"

Pasquale shot at him, eyes gleaming under s.h.a.ggy brows.

Garcia Farrugia was the Federal governor of the province, the general with whom Pasquale had been fighting for a year.

"No--not Farrugia."

The insurrecto chief, sprawling in the moonlight with his back against the table, nodded decisively.

"I thought as much. He's no fool. Garcia knows it would not weaken me to lose both of them, that my grief would not be inconsolable. Who, then, if not Farrugia?"

"n.o.body. I'm not an a.s.sa.s.sin. The story I told you is the truth, general."

"If that is true, Ramon Culvera's lies have brought you to your death."

The Mexican still sprawled with an arm flung across the table. Not a muscle of his lax body had grown more taut. But the eyes of the man--the terrible eyes that condemned men to their graves without a flicker of ruth--were fixed on the range-rider with a steady compulsion filled with hidden significance.

"Yes." Steve waited, alert and watchful. Presently he would understand what this grim, virile old scoundrel was driving at.

"You fought him in the open. You played your cards above the table. He comes back at you with a cold deck. Senor, do you love Ramon like a brother?"

"Of course not. If I could get at him before--"

The rigor of the black eyes boring into those of Yeager did not relax.

The impact of them was like steel grinding on steel.

"Yes? If you could get at him? What, then, senor?"

The words were hissed across the room at the American. Pasquale was no longer lounging. He leaned forward, body tense and rigid. His prisoner understood that an offer for his life was being made him. But what kind of an offer? Just what was he to do?

"Say it right out in plain United States talk, general. What is it you want me to do?"