"Would you kill Ramon Culvera--to save your own life?"

After barely an instant's hesitation Steve answered. "Yep. I'll fight him to a finish--any time, any place."

"Bueno! But there will be no risk for you. He will be summoned from his house to-night. You will stand in the darkness outside. One thrust of the knife and--you will be avenged. A saddled horse is waiting for you now in the cottonwood grove opposite. Before we get the pursuit started you will be lost in the darkness miles away."

The heart of Yeager sank. The thing he was being asked to do was plain murder. Even to save his own life he could not set his hand to such a contract.

"I can't do that, general. But I'll pick a quarrel with him. I'll take a chance on even terms."

"No--no!" Pasquale's voice was harsh and imperative. "The dog is plotting my murder. But first he wants to make sure he is strong enough to succeed me. So he waits. But I--Gabriel Pasquale--I wait for no man's knife. I strike first--and sure. You execute the traitor and save your own life which is forfeit. Caramba! Are you afraid?"

"Not afraid, but--"

"You walk out of that door a free man. You give the pa.s.sword for to-night. It is 'Gabriel.' You settle with the traitor and then ride away to safety. Maldito! Why hesitate?"

"Because I'm a white man, general. We don't kill in the dark and run away. When I offer to fight him to a finish I go the limit--and then some. For I don't hate Culvera that bad. But I think a heap of Steve Yeager's life, so I'll stand pat on my proposition."

"Am I a fool, senor?" asked the Mexican harshly. "How do I know you would keep faith, that you would not ride away--what you call laugh in your sleeve at me? No! You will strike under my own eye--with my revolver at your heart. Then I make sure."

"I'll bet you'd make sure. You'd shoot me down and explain it all fine when your men came running. 'The Gringo dog escaped and killed my dear friend Ramon, but by good luck I shot him before he made his getaway.'

Nothing doing."

"Then you refuse?" Pasquale's narrowed eyes glittered in the moonshine.

"You're right I do."

The Mexican rose. "Die like a dog, then, you pigheaded Gringo."

"Just a moment, general. I've got a letter here I wish you'd send north for me. It explains that I shot myself accidentally--lets you out fine in case Uncle Sam begins to ask inconvenient whys about my disappearance."

"And why so much care to save me trouble?" inquired the insurgent leader suspiciously.

"I have to put that in to get you to forward the letter, I reckon. What I want is that my friends should know I'm dead."

As a soldier Pasquale could understand that desire. He hesitated. The sudden death of Americans had of late stirred a good deal of resentment across the line. Why not take the alibi Yeager so conveniently offered him?

"Let's see your letter. But remember I promise nothing," said the Mexican roughly.

Steve moved forward and gave it to him. His heart was pounding against his ribs as does that of a frightened rabbit in the hand. If Pasquale looked at the letter now he had a chance. If he put it in his pocket the chance vanished.

The rebel chief glanced at the sheet of paper, opened it, and stepped back into the moonlight. For just an instant his eyes left Yeager and fell upon the paper. That moment belonged to Steve. Like a tiger he leaped for the hairy throat of the man.

Pasquale, with a half-articulate cry, stumbled back. But the American was on top of him, his strong, brown fingers were tightening on the sinewy throat. They went down together, the Mexican underneath. As he fell, the head of the general struck the edge of the table. The steel grip of Steve's hand did not relax, for a single sharp cry would mean death to him.

Just once Pasquale rolled half over before his body went slack and motionless. He had fainted.

The first thing Yeager did was to take the bandanna handkerchief from his neck and use it as a gag for his prisoner. He dragged the blankets from their corner and tore one of them into strips. With these he bound the hands of Pasquale behind him and tied his feet together. He unloosened the revolver belt of the Mexican and strapped it about his own waist. The silver-trimmed sombrero he put on his head and the serape he flung round his shoulders and across the lower part of his face in the same way the garment had been worn by its owner.

Steve glanced around to see that he had everything he needed.

"They's no manner o' doubt but you're taking a big chancet, son," he drawled to himself after the manner of an old range-rider he knew. "But we sure gotta take a long shot and gamble with the lid off. Any man who stops S. Yeager to-night is liable to find him a bad hombre. So-long, general."

He opened the door and stepped out. His heart was jumping queerly. The impulse was on him to cut across to the cottonwood grove on the dead run, but he knew this would never do. Instead, he sauntered easily into the moonlight with the negligence of one who has all night before his casual steps.

The sharp command of the guard outside slackened his stride.

"Gabriel," he called back over his shoulder without stopping.

"Si, senor. Buenos tardes."

"Buenos."

He moved at a leisurely pace down the street until he was opposite the cottonwoods. Here he diverged from the dusty road.

"Hope the old scalawag wasn't lying about that cavallo waiting for Steve. I'm plumb scairt to death till I get out of this here wolf's den.

Me, I'm too tender to monkey with any revolutions. I've knowed it happen frequent that a man got his roof blowed off for b.u.t.tin' in where he wasn't invited." He was still impersonating the old cowman as a vent to his excitement, which found no expression in the cool, deliberate motions of his lithe body.

He found the horse in the cottonwoods as Pasquale had promised. Swinging to the saddle, he cantered down the road to the outskirts of the village. A sentinel stopped him, and a second time he gave the countersign. He was just moving forward again when some one emerged from the darkness back of the sentry and sharply called to him to stop.

Steve knew that voice, would have known it among a thousand. Since he had no desire at this moment to hold a conversation with Ramon Culvera he drove his heels into the side of the cow pony. The horse leaped forward just as a revolver rang out. So close did the shot come to Yeager that it lifted the sombrero from his head as he dodged.

After he was out of range Yeager laughed. "Pasquale gets his hat back again--ventilated. Oh, well, it's bad enough to be a horse-thief without burglarizing a man's haberdashery. You're sure welcome to it, Gabriel."

He kept the horse at a gallop, for he knew he would be pursued. But his heart was lifted in him, for he was leaving behind him a shameful death.

All Sonora lay before him in which to hide, and in front of him stretched a distant line beyond which was the U.S.A. and safety.

The bench upon which he was riding dropped to a long roll of hills stretching to the horizon. The chances were a hundred to one that among these he would be securely hidden from the pursuit inside of an hour.

"Git down in yore collar to it, you buckskin," he urged his pony cheerfully. "This ain't no time to dream. You got to travel some, believe me. Steve played a b.u.m hand for all it was worth and I can see where he's right to hit the grit some lively. Burn the wind, you buzzard-haid."

An hour later he drew his pony to a road gait and lifted his head to the first faint flush of a dawning day. He sang softly, because by a miracle of good fortune that coming sun brought him life and not death. The song he caroled was, "When Gabriel blows his horn in the mawnin'."

CHAPTER XI

CHAD DECIDES TO GET BUSY

After his failure to stop Yeager's escape, Culvera lost no time before starting a party in pursuit. He knew there was small chance of finding the American in that rolling sea of hills, but there was at least no harm in making the attempt.

As he walked to Pasquale's headquarters to make a report of the affair, Culvera's mind was full of vague suspicions. How had this man escaped?

Had the old general freed him for some purpose of his own? Ramon had seen condemned prisoners released by his chief before. Always within a short time some enemy or doubtful friend of Pasquale had died a violent death. Was it his turn now? Could it be that Pasquale was antic.i.p.ating his treachery?

To learn that the general was out at three o'clock in the morning lent no rea.s.surance to his fears. After a moment's consideration the young man turned his steps toward the house where Yeager had been confined.

But before starting he stopped in the shadow of a barn to see that his revolvers were loose in the scabbards and in good working order. Nor did he cross the moonlit open direct, but worked to his destination by a series of tacks that kept him almost all the time in the darkness.