r its taking.

It was at this climaxing moment, while Ballard was tightening his
eye-hold upon the one dangerous antagonist, and foiling with his free
hand the attempts of the playful "Scotty" at his right to disarm him,
that the diversion came. A cloud of dust on the near-by stage trail
resolved itself into a fiery-red, purring motor-car with a single
occupant; and a moment later the car had left the road and was heading
across the grassy interspace.

Manuel's left hand was hovering above his pistol-butt; and Ballard took
his eyes from the menace long enough to glance aside at the approaching
motorist. He was a kingly figure of a man well on in years,
white-haired, ruddy of face, with huge military mustaches and a goatee.
He brought the car with a skilful turn into the midst of things; and
Ballard, confident now that the Mexican foreman no longer needed
watching, saw a singular happening.

While one might count two, the old man in the motor-car stared hard at
him, rose in his place behind the steering-wheel, staggered, groped with
his hands as the blind grope, and then fell back into the driving-seat
with a groan.

Ballard was off his horse instantly, tendering his pocket-flask. But the
old man's indisposition seemed to pass as suddenly as it had come.

"Thank you, suh," he said in a voice that boomed for its very depth and
sweetness; "I reckon I've been driving a little too fast. Youh--youh
name is Ballard--Breckenridge Ballard, isn't it?" he inquired
courteously, completely ignoring the dissolving ring of practical
jokers.

"It is. And you are Colonel Craigmiles?"

"At youh service, suh; entiahly at youh service. I should have known you
anywhere for a Ballard. Youh mother was a Hardaway, but you don't take
after that side. No, suh"--with calm deliberation--"you are youh father's
son, Mistah Ballard." Then, as one coming at a bound from the remote past
to the present: "Was thah any--ah--little discussion going on between you
and--ah--Manuel, Mistuh Ballard?"

Five minutes earlier the engineer had been angry enough to prefer
spiteful charges against the polo players all and singular. But the
booming of the deep voice had a curiously mollifying effect.

"It is hardly worth mentioning," he found himself replying. "I was
protesting to your foreman because the boys were having a little game of
polo at our expense--knocking our location stakes out of the ground."

The kingly old man in the motor-car drew himself