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"This guy hires a bunch of Pimans to steal Miss Barbara," he said. "I got it

straight from the fellow he paid the money to for gettin' him the right men to pull

off the job. He wants her it seems," and Billy shot a look at the ranch foreman

that would have killed if looks could. "She can't have been gone long. I seen her

after midnight, just before I made my getaway, so they can't have taken her very

far. This thing here can't help us none neither, for he don't know where she is

any more'n we do. He thinks he does; but he don't. The siwashes framed it on

him, an' they've doubled-crossed him. I got that straight too; but, Gawd! I don't

know where they've taken her or what they're goin' to do with her."

As he spoke he turned his eyes for the first time away from Grayson and looked

full in Anthony Harding's face. The latter saw beneath the strong character lines

of the other's countenance the agony of fear and doubt that lay heavy upon his

heart.

In the brief instant that Billy's watchful gaze left the figure of the ranch foreman

the latter saw the opportunity he craved. He was standing directly in the

doorway--a single step would carry him out of range of Byrne's gun, placing a

wall between it and him, and Grayson was not slow in taking that step.

When Billy turned his eyes back the Texan had disappeared, and by the time the

former reached the doorway Grayson was halfway to the office building on the

veranda of which stood the four soldiers of Villa grumbling and muttering over

the absence of their prisoner of the previous evening.

Billy Byrne stepped out into the open. The ranch foreman called aloud to the four

Mexicans that their prisoner was at the ranchhouse and as they looked in that

direction they saw him, revolver in hand, coming slowly toward them. There was

a smile upon his lips which they could not see because of the distance, and

which, not knowing Billy Byrne, they would not have interpreted correctly; but

the revolver they did understand, and at sight of it one of them threw his carbine

to his shoulder. His finger, however, never closed upon the trigger, for there came

the sound of a shot from beyond Billy Byrne and the Mexican staggered forward,

pitching over the edge of the porch to the ground.

Billy turned his head in the direction from which the shot had come and saw

Eddie Shorter running toward him, a smoking six-shooter in his right hand.

Go back," commanded Byrne; "this is my funeral."

Not on your life," replied Eddie Shorter. "Those greasers don't take no white man

off'n El Orobo, while I'm here. Get busy! They're comin'."

274

The Mucker