Right on the heels of the soldiers followed Skipper Tom and Engineer Joe, to lash the two craft fast.

"Who commands here?" demanded Lieutenant Overton.

There was no answer.

"Where's the gentleman with the fog-horn voice who appeared to have so much to say?" Hal questioned sharply.

None of the crew of the boarded vessel spoke. Nor was any further effort at resistance made.

On the deck Lieutenant Overton found one Mexican dead, and another badly wounded. Near each lay a rifle. Another Mexican seemingly unarmed, stood by the wheel, looking on with a sickly grin, but saying nothing. Down in the engine-room huddled two other Mexicans.

"Sergeant, search the man at the wheel, and then the pair down in the engine-room," Hal ordered. "If you find weapons on them, make the men your prisoners."

Followed by Noll and a few enlisted men, the Army boy made his way aft to the entrance to the main cabin. Hal tried the door, but it resisted his efforts.

"Open this door," he called, "and save us the trouble of breaking it in."

"Don't dare break it in," remonstrated the hoa.r.s.e voice. "If you do it will fall across the body of the woman you've probably already killed by your bullets."

Hal felt another chill run down his spine, but he answered firmly:

"If there's a wounded woman in there we'll do our best to rush her toward surgical help. But you'll have to open that door, or we'll do it for you!"

"Then you'd better stand away, boy!" warned the hoa.r.s.e voice grimly. "If you try to force your way in here you'll eat more bullets than you'll like."

"Just what we're after," retorted Lieutenant Overton grimly. "We want to lay our hands on the men who fired on United States troops, and I know they must be in there, for they're nowhere else on the boat. Your deck holds only two out of all who fired. Going to open?"

"_No_, you young hound!"

"Put your shoulders to the door, men!" continued Hal, turning to the nearest soldiers.

"I'll shoot the first man who comes through!" defied the voice behind the door, hoa.r.s.er than ever. "And I'll shoot as many more as I can!"

"Some of you men on the sides of the deck-house push your rifles through the cabin windows and be prepared to shoot if you have to," ordered Hal coolly.

There was a crashing of gla.s.s as the rifle muzzles were thrust in through the cabin windows.

Again the woman's shriek rang out.

"If you have to fire," continued Lieutenant Overton, "take all possible care not to hit the woman."

b.u.mp! b.u.mp! Even the st.u.r.dy cabin door was beginning to yield under the repeated impacts of so many pairs of shoulders. At last the door swung back on its hinges.

"Back, men, but stand ready!" commanded the Army boy, pressing forward through the opened doorway.

The handsome young lieutenant looked cool and undaunted as he stepped into the cabin, without a weapon in either hand.

Hal found himself confronted by a big, purple-faced individual of perhaps middle age, who stood glaring at the intruder, a revolver clutched in his right hand.

Back of him stood five Mexicans, each with a rifle, though the man at the moment was making no visible attempt to use his weapon. Behind the group a white-faced young woman, of perhaps twenty, stood clutching at a buffet for support.

"I think you had a wager on that you'd shoot me," smiled Lieutenant Hal.

"Instead, be good enough to hand your pistol to the sergeant."

"I'll----"

"You'll give your weapon up," Hal continued smilingly. "Sergeant, relieve the gentleman of his pistol. He's too nervous to have one; he might discharge it accidentally."

The purple-faced fellow, who was evidently an American, opened his mouth as if to pour out a torrent of abuse. But the sergeant quietly wrenched the weapon from his hand.

"Now, you Mexicans lay your rifles down on the floor," Hal continued, turning to the swarthier men.

Hesitatingly they obeyed, for they realized that all hope of successful resistance was now gone.

"What relation is this young lady to you, if any?" Hal asked, turning to the man.

"He's my father," spoke the girl, instead.

"Then, madam, he may remain in the cabin with you, if he chooses.

Sergeant, clear all others out of the cabin."

"What do you think you are going to do here, you young counter-jumper?"

snarled the girl's father.

"We are going to take this craft and all it holds back to Agua Dulce as a prize," Hal replied quietly. "Madam, you were not wounded in the least, were you?"

"No," she answered, looking rather sheepish.

"Then we shall not need to make so much haste on your account. But we have a Mexican up on the deck who may need attention in a hurry."

"The fellow on the deck is only a Mexican," sneered the purple-faced one, all of his recent Mexican companions having been removed from the cabin by the soldiers.

"He's a badly wounded man, whether he's an American, Mexican, Chinaman or Hindu," Hal retorted. "All men are ent.i.tled to humane treatment by soldiers. And I think I hardly need to remind you, sir, that you yourself have deemed it worth while to be a.s.sociated with Mexicans."

"Because business made it necessary," replied the American huskily, yet in a lower voice. "Almost every dollar I have in the world is invested in a part of Mexico that the _insurrectos_ hold and seem likely to go on holding."

"The same old dollar excuse?" demanded Lieutenant Overton. "Are you another of the men who have grown to think that the straight and narrow path is found only in the s.p.a.ce between the two parallel lines of the dollar-sign?"

Then, turning, Hal went to the door of the cabin to call:

"Lieutenant Terry!"

"Here, sir."

"Be good enough to inspect the cargo that this craft may carry, as speedily as you can. But we will begin here, and see what these piles are that have been covered with canvas at the forward end of the cabin."

"Rifle cases, beyond any doubt," nodded Noll, as he and Hal switched away the canvas covers.