Rhodes cut the third time, then stared and whistled.

"The cards are stacked by the Indian! All three covered with war paint. What's the use in a poor stray white bucking against that?"

He picked out the cards and placed them side by side, ace, king and queen of hearts.

"Three aces could beat them," suggested Pike. "Go on Bub, shuffle them up, don't be a piker."

Rhodes did, and cut ten of clubs.

"Not even the right color," he lamented. "Nothing less than two aces for salvation, and I--don't--get--them!"

A lonely deuce fell on the sand, and Rhodes eyed it sulkily as he rolled a cigarette.

"You poor little runt," he apostrophized the harmless two-spot.

"You've kicked me out of the frying pan into the fire, and a good likely blaze at that!"

"Don't reckon I care to go any deeper into trouble than what we've found," decided Pike. "Ordinary Indian sc.r.a.ps are all in the day's work--same with a Mexican outfit--but, Bub, this slave-hunting graft game with the state soldiery doing the raiding is too strong a combine for two lone rangers to buck against. Me for the old U. S. border, and get some of this devilish word to the peace advocates at home."

"They wouldn't believe you, and only about two papers along the border would dare print it," observed Rhodes. "Every time a band of sunny Mexicans loot a ranch or steal women, the word goes north that again the bloodthirsty Yaquis are on the warpath! Those poor devils never leave their fields of their own will, and don't know why the Americans have a holy dread of them. Yet the Yaqui is the best worker south of the line."

"If he wasn't the price wouldn't be worth the slave trader's valuable time," commented Pike.

The Indian girl made a quick gesture of warning, just a sweep outward of her hand along the ground. She didn't even look at them, but down the arroya, the trail they had come.

"_Caballos, hombres!_" she muttered in her throat.

"The kid's right,--hear them!" said Rhodes, and then he looked at him, and made a strange movement of eyes and head to direct the attention back of her in the thicket of cactus and squat greasewood. He did not look at once, but finally with a circular sweep of the locality, he saw the light glint on a gun barrel along the edge of a little mesa above them.

"Nice friendly attention," he observed. "Someone sizing us up. Time to hit the trail anyway, Cap;--to get through on the grub we have to travel tonight."

He rose and handed the water bottles to the girl to fill, while he tightened cinches.

"It's a long day's trip, Cap," he stated thoughtfully, "a long day out to Carrizal, and a long one back to Mesa Blanca. I'll divide the dust and the grub fifty-fifty, and you get out to some base of supplies.

I'd rather you'd take Pardner, and keep on going across the line. The trail is clear from here for you, and enough water holes and settlements for you to get through. I don't think Pardner would last for the back trip, but you can save him by riding at night; the burro and mule are best for us. Here's the dust."

While Pike had been talking of crossing the border, Kit had been rapidly readjusting the provision so that the old chap had enough to carry him to the first settlement, and the gold dust would more than pay for provision the rest of the way.

"Why--say, Bub!" remonstrated Pike. "You're so sudden! I don't allow to leave you by your lonesomes like this. Why, I had planned----"

"There's nothing else to do," decided Rhodes crisply. "If you don't beat it with Pardner, we'll lose him, sure! I'm going to take these Indians back, and you can help most by waiting north of the line till you hear from me. I'll get word to you at Granados. So, if there should be any trouble with these visitors of ours, your trail is clear;--savvy?"

Two men rode into view in the bend of the arroya. A cartridge belt across each shoulder, and one around each waist, was the most important part of their equipment.

"_Buenos dias_, senors," said one politely, while his little black eyes roved quickly over the group. "Is there still water to be found in the well here? _Dios!_ it is the heat of h.e.l.l down there in the valley."

"At your service, senor, is water fresh drawn," said Rhodes, and turned to the girl, "Oija, Tulita!--water for the gentlemen. You ride far, senor?"

"From Soledad wells."

"Yes, I know the brand," remarked Rhodes.

"This is a good season in which to avoid too much knowledge, or too good a memory, senor," observed the man who had not spoken. "Many herds will change hands without markets before tranquility is over in Mexico."

"I believe you, senor, and we who have nothing will be the lucky ones," agreed Rhodes, regarding the man with a new interest. He was not handsome, but there was a something quick and untamed in his keen, black eyes, and though the mouth had cruel hard lines, his tone was certainly friendly, yet dominating.

"What have you here?" he asked with a gesture toward Miguel.

"My Indian who tried to save his women from slavers, and was left for dead," stated Rhodes frankly.

"And this?"

He pointed to the girl filling again the water bottles.

"She is mine, senor. We go to our own homes."

"Hum! you should be enlisted in the fights and become capitan, but these would drop by the trail if you left them. Well, another time perhaps, senor! For the water many thanks. _Adios!_" and with wave of the hand they clattered down the arroya.

"Queer," muttered Rhodes, "did you catch that second chap signal to the gun man in the cactus? He craw-fished back over the mesa and faded away."

"They didn't come for water alone--some scouten' party trailin' every sign found," decided Pike. "I'll bet they had us circled before the two showed themselves. Wonder who they are after?"

"Anyway they didn't think us worth while gathering in, which is a comfort. That second fellow looks like someone I've crossed trails with, but I can't place him."

"They'll place you all right, all right!" prophesied Pike darkly, "you and your interesting family won't need a brand."

Rhodes stared at him a moment and then grinned.

"Right you are, Cap. Wouldn't it be pie for the gossips to slice up for home consumption?"

He kept on grinning as he looked at the poor bit of human flotsam whom he had dubbed "the owl" because of her silence and her eyes. She aroused Miguel without words, watching him keenly for faintest sign of recovery. The food and sleep had refreshed him in body, but the mind was far away. To the girl he gave no notice, and after a long bewildered stare at Rhodes he smiled in a deprecating way.

"Your pardon, Don Jose, that I outsleep the camp," he muttered haltingly. "It is a much sickness of the head to me."

"For that reason must you ride slowly today," stated Rhodes with quick comprehension of the groping mind, though the "Don Jose" puzzled him, and at first chance he loitered behind with the girl and questioned her.

"How makes itself that I must know all the people in the world before I was here on earth?" she asked morosely? "Me he does not know, Don Jose is of Soledad and is of your tallness, so----"

"Know you the man who came for water at the canon well?" he asked, and she looked at him quickly and away.

"The name of the man was not spoke by him, also he said a true word of brands on herds--these days."

"In these days?" reflected Rhodes, amazed at the ungirlish logic. "You know what he meant when he said that?"

"We try that we know--all we, for the Deliverer is he named, and by that name only he is spoke in the prayers we make."

Rhodes stared at her, incredulous, yet wondering if the dusty vaquero looking rider of brief words could be the man who was called outlaw, heathen, and bandit by Calendria, and "Deliverer" by these people of bondage.

"You think that is true;--he will be the deliverer?"