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pace could be. This was no pleasure ride which took the boss's daughter--"heifer,"

Eddie would have called her--ten miles up river at a hard trot. Eddie was worried,

too. They had passed the danger line, and were well within the stamping ground

of Pesita and his retainers. Here each little adobe dwelling, and they were

scattered at intervals of a mile or more along the river, contained a rabid partisan

of Pesita, or it contained no one--Pesita had seen to this latter condition

personally.

At last the young lady drew rein before a squalid and dilapidated hut. Eddie

gasped. It was Jose's, and Jose was a notorious scoundrel whom old age alone

kept from the active pursuit of the only calling he ever had known--brigandage.

Why should the boss's daughter come to Jose? Jose was hand in glove with every

cutthroat in Chihuahua, or at least within a radius of two hundred miles of his

abode.

Barbara swung herself from the saddle, and handed her bridle reins to Eddie.

Hold him, please," she said. "I'll be gone but a moment."

You're not goin' in there to see old Jose alone?" gasped Eddie.

Why not?" she asked. "If you're afraid you can leave my horse and ride along

home."

Eddie colored to the roots of his sandy hair, and kept silent. The girl approached

the doorway of the mean hovel and peered within. At one end sat a bent old man,

smoking. He looked up as Barbara's figure darkened the doorway.

"Jose!" said the girl.

The old man rose to his feet and came toward her.

Eh? Senorita, eh?" he cackled.

You are Jose?" she asked.

Si, senorita," replied the old Indian. "What can poor old Jose do to serve the

beautiful senorita?"

"You can carry a message to one of Pesita's officers," replied the girl. "I have heard

much about you since I came to Mexico. I know that there is not another man in

this part of Chihuahua who may so easily reach Pesita as you." She raised her

hand for silence as the Indian would have protested. Then she reached into the

pocket of her riding breeches and withdrew a handful of silver which she

permitted to trickle, tinklingly, from one palm to the other. "I wish you to go to

the camp of Pesita," she continued, "and carry word to the man who robbed the

246

The Mucker