Like a thunderclap the prizefighter broke loose in a turbid stream of profanity. It boiled from his lips like molten lava from a crater. The raucous words poured forth from a heart furious with rage. The man was beside himself. He raved like a madman--and the object of his invective was Stephen Yeager.

And all the time the man cursed he stamped painfully about the room, a sight to wonder at. His face was so swollen, so bruised and discolored, that he was hardly recognizable. He had managed to creep into another suit of clothes after the doctor had dressed his wounds and sewed up his cuts, but these could not hide the fact that every step was a torment to his pummeled ribs and lacerated flesh. He was game. Another man in his condition would have been in the hospital. Harrison dragged himself about because he would not admit that he was badly hurt.

Culvera turned to the Americans and explained the situation in a few sentences. He was enjoying himself extremely because the vanity of his companion writhed at the position in which he was placed.

"Your friend Yeager was not pleasing to our general and was sentenced to be shot. He escaped in the night. Our companion Harrison, also I believe a compatriot and friend of yours, is a charmer of ladies' hearts, as you will perceive with one glance at his handsome face. Behold, then, an elopement, romance, and moonshine. 'Linda de mi alma, amor mia, come,'

he cries. The lady comes. But, alas! for true love, the brutal vaquero follows. They meet, and--I draw a merciful curtain over the result."

Harrison was off again in crisp and crackling language. When at last his vocabulary was exhausted, he turned savagely upon Threewit and Farrar.

"I'll see Pasquale gets the right dope on you fellows too. You're a pair of d.a.m.ned fools for coming here, believe _me_. If the old man can't get Yeager, he'll take his friends instead. Didn't I tell you I'd make you sick of what you did to me, Threewit? Good enough. I've got you both where I want you now. You'll get plenty of h.e.l.l, take my word for it."

Threewit turned with dignity to the Mexican. "I have nothing to say to this man, Major Culvera. But you are a gentleman. We have been deceived.

I ask for an escort as far as the border to see us safely back."

Culvera was full of bland hospitality. "Really I can't permit you to leave before the general returns. He would never forgive me. When friends travel so far, they must be entertained. Not so?"

"Are we prisoners? Is that what you mean?" demanded Farrar bluntly.

The major shook his finger toward him with smiling deprecation.

"Prisoners! Fie, what a word among friends? Let us rather say guests of honor. If I give you a guard it is as a precaution, to make sure that no rash peon makes the mistake of injuring you as an enemy."

"We understand," Threewit answered. "But I'll just tell you one thing, major. Our friends know where we are, and Uncle Sam has a long arm. It will reach easily to Noche Buena."

"So, senor? Perhaps. Maybe. Who knows? Accidents happen--regrettable ones. A thousand apologies to your Uncle Sam. Oh, yes! Ver' sorry. Too late to mend, but then have we not shot the foolish peon who made the mistake in regard to Senors Farrar and Threewit? Yes, indeed."

Culvera tossed off his genial prophecy with the politest indifference.

The prisoners read in his words a threat, sinister and scarcely veiled.

"You're talking murder, which is absurd," answered Threewit. "We've done no harm to you or General Pasquale. We came here by mistake. He'll let us go, of course."

"You sent Yeager down here to spy about those cattle you lost. Now you've come down here b.u.t.tin' in to see for yourself. I don't expect Pasquale is going to stand for any such thing," broke in Harrison.

Farrar looked the prizefighter straight in the eye.

"You're a liar and you know it, Harrison. Let me tell you something else. You've stood here and cursed Yeager to the limit. Why? Because he's a better man than you are. I don't know just what's happened, but I can see that he has given you the beating of your life. And he did it in fair fight too."

Harrison interrupted with a scream of rage. "I'll cave his head in when we meet sure as he's a foot high."

"No, you won't. He's got your goat. What I've got to say about Yeager is this. If you put over any of your sculduggery on us, he'll wipe you off the map no matter in what lonesome hole you hide. Just stick a pin in that."

The bully moved slowly toward Farrar. His head had sunk down and his shoulders fallen to the gorilla hunch.

"You've said enough--too much, d.a.m.n you," he roared.

With catlike swiftness Culvera sprang from where he sat, flung his weight low at the furious man from an angle, and tipped him from his feet so that he fell staggering into a chair.

"None of that, amigo," said the Mexican curtly. "These gentlemen are guests of General Pasquale. Till he pa.s.ses judgment they shall be treated with ver' much courtesy."

Panting heavily, Harrison glared at him. Some day he intended to take a fall out of this supercilious young Spanish aristocrat, but just now he was not equal to the task. He mumbled incoherent threats.

"I don't quite catch your remarks. Is it that they are to my address, Senor Harrison?" asked the young officer silkily.

Heavily Harrison rose and pa.s.sed from the room without looking at any of them. For the present he was beaten and he knew it.

The Mexican smiled confidentially at his prisoners. "Between friends, it's ver' devilish unpleasant to do business with such a--what you call--ruffian. But ver' necessar'. Oh, yes! Quite so."

"Depends on one's business, I expect," replied Farrar.

"You have said it, senor. A patriot can't be too particulair. He uses the tools that come to his hands. But pardon! My tongue is like a woman's. It runs away with time."

He called the guard and had the prisoners removed. They were put in the same adobe hut where Yeager had been confined a few days earlier.

Threewit lit a cigar and paced up and down gloomily. "This is a h.e.l.l of a fix we're in. Before we get out of here the old man will be hollering his head off for that 'Retreat of the Bandits' three-reeler."

The camera man laughed ruefully. "I ain't worrying any about the old man. He's back there safe in little old New York. It's Frank Farrar that's on my mind. How is he going to get out of here?"

The director stopped, took the cigar from his mouth, and looked across questioningly at him.

"You don't really think Pasquale will hurt us, do you?"

"No; not unless the breaks go against us. I don't reckon Pasquale has anything much against Yeager any more than he has against us. Of course, Harrison will do his darndest to make him sore at us. Notice how he tried to put it over that we had come about that bunch of cattle he stole?"

"Sure I did. But it is not likely that Harrison is ace high in this pack. What I'm afraid of is that the old general will soak us for a ransom. He's nothing but an outlaw, anyhow."

Within the hour they were taken before Pasquale. He was still covered with the dust of travel. His riding-gloves lay on the table where he had tossed them. His soft white hat was on his head. As rapidly as possible he was devouring a chicken dinner.

It was his discourteous whim to keep them waiting in the back of the room until he had finished. They were offered no seats, but stood against the wall under the eye of the guard who had brought them.

The general finished his bottle of wine before he turned savagely upon them.

"You are friends of the Gringo Yeager. Not so?" he accused.

It was too late for a denial now. Threewit admitted the charge.

"So. Maldito! What are you doing here? I've had enough of you Yankees!"

he exploded.

Before Threewit had more than begun his explanations he brushed aside the director's words.

"This Yeager is a devil. Did he not crawl up on me unexpect' and strike me here with an axe?" He touched the back of his head, across which a wide bandage ran. "Be sure I will cut his heart out some day. Gabriel Pasquale has said it. And you--you come here to spy what we have. You claim my cattle. Am I a fool that I do not know?"

"We are sorry--"

The Mexican struck the table with his hairy brown fist so that the dishes rang. "Sorry! Jesu Cristo! In good time I shall see to that. If I do not lay hands upon this devil Yeager, his friends will do instead. Am I one to be laughed at by Gringos?"

Threewit spoke as firmly as he could, though the fear of this big, unshaven savage was in his heart. "We are not spies, general. We were brought here by the lie that Yeager lay here dying and had sent for us.

In no way have we harmed you. Before you go too far, remember that our Government will not tolerate any foul play. We are not stray sheepherders. Our friends are close to the President. They have his ear and--"