"He's going to stay there. He's not coming at all," she wailed as she ran.

"Sho! Of course he's coming. You know Steve, don't you? He's always got something good up his sleeve."

But though her friend rea.s.sured her, he could not still his own fears.

Something in him cried out against the desertion of a wounded ally, one who had risked his life to save them all. Still, there was the girl to be considered. If Yeager wanted to give his life for hers he had the right. Many a good man of the Southwest would have done what Steve was doing, given the same circ.u.mstances. It was up to him, Farrar, to back his friend's play and see it through.

Yeager crawled on his hands and knees into a mesquite thicket from which he could command a view of the open s.p.a.ce back of Pasquale's house. He broke carefully half a dozen twigs that interfered with the free play of his rifle. Then he placed his revolver beside him ready for action.

After which he waited, tense and watchful.

Mexicans were swarming about the back of the house. One climbed the rope ladder, looked in the window, and explained with much gesturing to those below that the room was empty. Random shots were thrown toward the river and into the grove. But n.o.body headed the pursuit. They were waiting for a leader.

Then Pasquale burst furiously into sight around the house. Culvera, Ochampa, and Holcomb followed him. The general flung himself into an excited group, tossing to right and left those who were in his way. He snapped out questions, gave orders, and stamped over the ground like a madman.

Called by Culvera, he strode forward to one of the drugged guards. In an impotent fury he shook the man, trying to waken him from his sleep; then, raging at his failure, he flung the helpless body against the wall and turned on his heel.

Order began to evolve out of the mob. Pasquale himself organized the pursuit. He spread the line out so that as it advanced it would sweep the whole s.p.a.ce to the river. There was no longer any wild firing. Men brought from the stables eight or ten horses for the officers.

As the line moved forward, Yeager thought it time to let the enemy know where he was. He drew a bead on the general, moved his rifle slightly to the left, and fired. Pasquale drew his sword and waved it.

"Take the girl alive. Shoot down the traitor dogs with her," he cried savagely. "One hundred pesos to the man who kills either of them or captures her."

Steve answered this by firing twice, once with his revolver and almost immediately afterward with his rifle. Ochampa sat down suddenly. He had been hit in the leg.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE PRISONER

Pasquale changed his tactics. Having located his prey with fair accuracy, he spread his men so as to converge upon the fugitives as the spokes of a wheel do toward the hub. His instructions were that the men were not to fire unless they were within close enough range to be sure not to hit the girl.

His courage had been tested often enough to be beyond doubt, so Gabriel contented himself with waiting behind his horse for the captives to be brought to him. He had no intention of being killed in a skirmish of this kind as long as he had peons to send forward in his place.

"Bet five dollars gold I have them inside of a quarter of an hour, captain," the Mexican general said, peering across his saddle toward the grove.

"Yes," a.s.sented Major Ochampa in a depressed voice. He objected to having camp vagrants take liberties with his leg. "Hope you make an example of them, general."

Pasquale turned, his eyes like cold lights on a frosty night. "They'll pray for death a hundred times before it comes to them," he promised brutally. Then, with quick surprise, "Where's Holcomb?"

"He went forward with the men."

"Just like him," replied Gabriel, shrugging his shoulders. "The madman must always be in the thick of it. It's the Gringo way."

From his mesquite thicket Yeager kept up as rapid a fire as possible, using rifle and revolver alternately so as to deceive the enemy into believing the whole party was there. His object was merely to gain time for his escaping friends. Ochampa had been wounded as an object lesson, but he did not intend to kill any of those who were surrounding him. If there had been a dozen of them he would have fought it out to a finish, but with one against a thousand he felt it would be useless murder to kill.

Steve fired into the air, knowing that would do just as well to delay the attackers. Each time he fired his revolver he called aloud softly to himself the number of the shot. It was essential to his plan that there should be one bullet left the moment before they took him.

He could hear them stumbling toward him through the brush and could make out the dark figures as they crawled forward.

"Four," he counted as he fired his revolver into the air and cut off a twig.

His rifle sang out twice. He waited, listening. Bushes crackled a few yards behind him. s.n.a.t.c.hing up his revolver, he turned.

"Don't fire, Steve," said a low voice in perfectly good English.

Holcomb came out of the thicket toward him.

"h.e.l.lo, captain. Nice large warm evening. You out taking the air?" asked the cowpuncher.

"Did the rest get away?"

"Hope so. I had rotten luck. One of the guards plugged me in the leg, so I thought I'd kinder keep the Legion busy while our friends make their getaway."

"Can't you run?"

"Can't even walk." Yeager raised the revolver and fired. "Five. One left now."

His eye met that of the captain. Each of them understood perfectly.

"That first shot of yours just missed Pasquale. Pity you didn't shoot straighter."

"I had a dead beat on the old scamp, but I didn't want him. If Ruth gets away, that's all I ask. He's all kinds of a wolf, but Mexico needs him, I reckon."

"You're right about that, Steve. It wouldn't have done you any good to lay him out. Here they come."

A man ploughed through the brush toward them. Another appeared to the left. The face of a third peered around the trunk of an adjacent cottonwood. Of a sudden the grove seemed alive with them.

Raising his gun, Steve nodded farewell to his friend.

A moment before Holcomb had had no intention of interfering, but an impulse that was almost an inspiration gave springs to his muscles. He leaped.

The fling of his arm sent the shot flying wildly into the night. Yeager turned on him furiously as he picked himself up to his knees.

"What did you do that for?"

"I don't know--had no intention of it a moment before. Maybe I've done you a bad turn, Steve. It came over me as a hunch that you were coming out of this all right."

"The devil it did. Gimme your gun. Quick!"

It was too late. The Mexicans were closing with him. They flung him down and pegged him to the ground with their weight. He made no attempt to struggle.

"Get off of him. He's my prisoner," roared Holcomb, flinging one of the Mexicans back.

They poured on him a flood of protesting Spanish. They had taken him while he was still at large. The reward was theirs.

"Confound the reward. You may have it, but the man belongs to me. Get up. He's wounded. Two of you will have to carry him."