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"Wait a minute, bo," interrupted Billy Byrne. "Don't get excited. I'm lookin' to get

my pal outen' Cuivaca. After that I don't care who you capture; but I'm goin' to

get Bridgie out first. I ken do it with twenty-five men--if it ain't too late. Then, if

you want to, you can shoot up the town. Lemme have the twenty-five, an' you

hang around the edges with the rest of 'em 'til I'm done. Whaddaya say?"

Pesita was willing to agree to anything, and so it came that half an hour later

Billy Byrne was leading a choice selection of some two dozen cutthroats down

through the hills toward Cuivaca. While a couple of miles in the rear followed

Pesita with the balance of his band.

Billy rode until the few remaining lights of Cuivaca shone but a short distance

ahead and they could hear plainly the strains of a grating graphophone from

beyond the open windows of a dance hall, and the voices of the sentries as they

called the hour.

"Stay here," said Billy to a sergeant at his side, "until you hear a hoot owl cry

three times from the direction of the barracks and guardhouse, then charge the

opposite end of the town, firing off your carbines like hell an' yellin' yer heads off.

Make all the racket you can, an' keep it up 'til you get 'em comin' in your

direction, see? Then turn an' drop back slowly, eggin' 'em on, but holdin' 'em to it

as long as you can. Do you get me, bo?"

From the mixture of Spanish and English and Granavenooish the sergeant

gleaned enough of the intent of his commander to permit him to salute and admit

that he understood what was required of him.

Having given his instructions Billy Byrne rode off to the west, circled Cuivaca and

came close up upon the southern edge of the little village. Here he dismounted

and left his horse hidden behind an outbuilding, while he crept cautiously

forward to reconnoiter.

He knew that the force within the village had no reason to fear attack. Villa knew

where the main bodies of his enemies lay, and that no force could approach

Cuivaca without word of its coming reaching the garrison many hours in advance

of the foe. That Pesita, or another of the several bandit chiefs in the neighborhood

would dare descend upon a garrisoned town never for a moment entered the

calculations of the rebel leader.

For these reasons Billy argued that Cuivaca would be poorly guarded. On the

night he had spent there he had seen sentries before the bank, the guardhouse,

and the barracks in addition to one who paced to and fro in front of the house in

which the commander of the garrison maintained his headquarters. Aside from

these the town was unguarded.

248

The Mucker